Graveyard Shift
by Peptuck
Summary: A Spectre. A colony. A beacon. An enemy. A prophecy. A ship. A crew. A threat that could end civilization as they knew it. And from all of these things....a hero. In-depth Mass Effect Novelization.
1. Prologue: The Blitz

_**Graveyard Shift: A Mass Effect Novelization**_

_**Prologue: The Blitz**_

_Wonder what they're going to call this someday._

It was a random thought, the kind that filters into the mind when it is desensitized to the madness that surrounds one in sapient-made hell. The kind of random thought that indicates sanity had either gone missing in action, or was fighting its way back up toward the surface.

Fingers fumbled over the loading catch for the Lancer rifle, and First Lieutenant Shepard cursed while trying to open the damned thing. It wasn't designed for quick combat reloads, but that wasn't surprising when one considered how much ammunition a single block of firing material provided. The manufacturers at Hahne-Kedar hadn't considered the need for reloading in battle to be particularly important.

Missiles screamed past overhead, and the rattle of gunfire was omnipresent, interspersed with the deep, shuddering blasts of mortar impacts. The pavement seemed like water that had been churned in a hurricane, then flash frozen into craters and piles of blackened stone. Shepard kept splitting his gaze between the area around him and the soot-streaked skies overhead, watching for enemy recon or artillery spotter drones.

And there he was, dragged out of shore leave and standing in the middle of this hellstorm, in armor he'd recovered from a Marine depot, holding a rifle he'd pried from the fingers of a fallen soldier hours ago.

Now he stood alone, in the middle of the main road into Elysium City, cut off from contact with any of the other Marine units protecting the city. A morass of rubble surrounded him, a mixture destroyed cars, ruined buildings, and hastily-erected barricades assembled by the Marines before the sat-strikes had killed them all.

They were out there, moving though the rubble of the outer suburbs. Human forms, slender salarian figures, tall, avian turian soldiers, and the hulking shapes of krogan warriors, all lurking through the ruins and preparing for another push. The element zero cores of their suits and weapons stood out clear and bright on his head-up display. He counted the number of contacts, and grimaced.

One man, with a single rifle, pitting himself against dozens - possibly hundreds - of criminals and pirates. As he stood there, Shepard had a decision to make: Stand against impossible odds and an enemy that outnumbered and outgunned him a hundred to one, or fall back in the face of such overwhelming firepower, and maybe survive?

In the distance, he saw movement. A sudden flurry of gunfire from a dozen locations ripped toward the barricades and rubble, suppressive fire to pin down the defenders. The enemy started to swarm toward the morass of broken buildings and vehicles, their victory assured, the Marines they thought were there apparently suppressed under a wave of ravaging gunfire as they advanced. There had to be at least a hundred troops out there – far too many to fight.

If the enemy breached this position, though . . . .

_Mindoir. It'll be Mindoir all over again._

The memories of that moment lanced into his brain, setting his thoughts ablaze with hate and fury.

Shepard made the decision.

He rose, shouldered the rifle, and held the line when all else was lost. So long as he still breathed, Elysium would _not _become another Mindoir.

* * *

Two hours had passed. Two ammunition blocks had to be discarded as they had run low. The Lancer had begun to melt due to constant overheating. Shepard had thrown it aside, scavenging customized rifles from the hands of dead mercenaries. One of them had been carrying an Elkoss Avenger VI with a powerful heat sink and toxic ammunition modifications, which Shepard was using now.

They had tried two rushes, and Shepard had stopped them cold each time. He had used every dirty guerilla trick in the book: mines, surprise attacks, traps. More than one wrecked car still had a working eezo core, which he had jury-rigged to blow, turning them into massive car bombs.

When the pirates used pinpoint satellite strikes to demolish his cover, Shepard took shelter behind the bodies of slain Marines and mercenaries, some of whom still had active kinetic barriers powered by their suits. Shepard's heart was still pounding even after a fifteen minute lull, natural and synthetic adrenaline running through veins to support a body that was already exhausted. Pure, nonstop close-quarters combat drained a warrior faster than anything else.

They had pushed Shepard back with each advance, but he had made them pay dearly for each thrust. They were buying ground at a rate of roughly one and a half soldiers per meter, and while that wouldn't have dissuaded a fanatical enemy, these were mercenaries who weren't eager to die for money they couldn't spend.

They had spent the last fifteen minutes calling up reinforcements. Hundreds of soldiers were being brought up to overwhelm one warrior holding a single street. There were reports filtering in over the static of the comm that assaults on other Marine positions were being slowed, enemy troops pulling back off other defense points. That was fine. He would hold them off as long as possible and give the Marines time to bring up reinforcements. The Alliance was coming, and every minute Shepard held them-

Movement in the debris. The mercenaries were advancing again. Shepard's breathing slowed as the Marine calmed himself, and he raised the Avenger rifle. They didn't open up with a satellite barrage like the last two times, for some reason, but he didn't have time to consider his fortune.

It was a pincer rush, squads of mercenaries storming up on either side of the street, trying to draw fire from the defender, locate the position where the shots were coming from, and catch the Marine in a crossfire. They bounded forward, fireteams moving ahead to secure and cover the advance of their companions.

However, the chokepoint was too narrow, and Shepard expected such a tactic. Blooms of fire and shrapnel sounded on either side of the narrow street, and mercenaries screamed as Shepard's rigged grenades blew. Between the one hundred and seven dead Marines and countless slain mercenaries in the chokepoint, there was no shortage of those.

The Marine rose and opened fire, rounds cutting through the barriers of a batarian and sending him screaming to the ground, thrashing about as the toxins did their work. Shepard pivoted, glad for the brutally effective weapon, as only one penetrating shot was needed to bring an enemy down and render them ineffective. A long burst to break shields, and then a rapid double-tap took a long-necked salarian criminal in the throat. It dropped with a gurgle, and Shepard turned, firing purely on instinct. Another batarian fell backwards, rounds punching through the creature's shields and into its shoulder. It screamed in agony as the toxins ate away.

The mercenaries continued to advance, several fireteams now pushing up the middle. Shepard turned to suppress them, his shots forcing them into cover, and then triggered another detonator. Another line of charges blew, hammering the mercenaries with overlapping waves of skin-searing heat and shrapnel. Cries of agony were drowned out by the reverberating detonations, and Shepard took advantage of the confusion to scythe rounds into the shocked enemy.

A long stream of fire killed two turians, and the hulking, hunchbacked form of a krogan warrior became visible, charging up to the right for a shot. Shepard whirled on the massive alien, recognizing the enormous threat those beasts presented. Three rapid bursts penetrated the alien's shields and then its armor, but the krogan warrior didn't even flinch as the burning toxins pumped into its blood. Instead, it leapt up on top of a burnt-out vehicle and began blasting away with a shotgun.

Shepard fell back as hypervelocity slugs ripped up the ground nearby, and ducked behind the remains of a Mako fighting vehicle. The alien kept firing, more out of fury than common sense, and moments later its shotgun began to overheat, steam rising off the weapon as it shut down automatically.

Shepard then rolled around the side of the Mako, whipping out a grenade in the alien's moment of vulnerability. The disc-like explosive latched onto the transport just below where the krogan stood, and the bomb detonated, vaporizing half the car and flinging the alien off its feet.

Two batarians were moving up on the opposite side of the Mako. Shepard spotted them on his suit's sensors, but didn't turn to face them, instead firing on and killing another turian twenty meters off. They came around the vehicle, weapons raised, when another explosive charge on their side of the transport went off, blasting one into fine mist and throwing the other a dozen meters away, in about as many pieces.

A fireteam rushed toward Shepard's position, trying to flank the Marine and pin him down with intense fire, and the soldier fell back, firing and twisting, diving for more cover behind a broken hunk of building debris. A turian mercenary was left writhing in agony behind the stubborn defender, who rose and spat a scything stream of suppression fire at the advancing criminals. They fell back, taking cover.

Then a shadow loomed over Shepard. The krogan, blood weeping from the wounds it had taken earlier, thundered toward the Marine, leaping over the top of the rubble. It had a knife in hand, and was roaring obscenities as the knife cut straight toward Shepard's face.

Pain. Broken visor. _Blood._

Shepard fell back, screaming, and beneath the Marine's skin, pulses of electricity fired down oversized nerves covered with cancer-like growths. Nodes of exotic material triggered, reality warped, and as Shepard reeled, blood sliding across a wounded face, the soldier's hand flew up. Blue-white light flashed for a brief instant as dark matter and dark energy met the "real" world.

The krogan's helmet, and the alien face behind it, caved in. The alien's body was lifted up and flung away, spinning through the air and crashing against a mound of debris.

A roar came, overhead, and not the screaming of missiles. Shepard's bones shook, his armor vibrating, his barriers flaring as debris spared against them. Then-

Heat.

Light.

_Pressure_.

_**Darkness.**_

* * *

"Commander?"

Shepard turned away from the orbital vista of Earth, shaking free of the memories. Friendly fire wasn't very friendly, and it was a miracle the strafing frigates hadn't killed the him along with the column of batarian-paid mercenaries.

"Sorry, Pressly. Thinking back."

The bald-shaven Lieutenant nodded, and extended a mug of processed caffeine. Shepard nodded thanks and took it. A quick sip showed it to be hot, fresh, and strong enough to corrode the shuttle's paint. Perfect.

"What about, if you don't mind?" Shepard's head shook.

"The battle that got me this job," was the reply, and Pressly nodded.

"The Skyllian Blitz," he mused. His expression shifted to one of contrition. "Sorry, I know how ugly it was back there. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

"No problem, I was already thinking about it anyway." Shepard crossed the small shuttle's passenger compartment, and started looking out into the darkness of space. Up ahead, there was one of the orbital docking stations at Lagrange Point 3, and he could see numerous ships docked to it, releasing toward the embracing void, or moving into position to attach. One in particular caught Shepard's eye.

"That ours?" Pressly stood and joined the Commander at the window. He peered out, and spotted the one Shepard meant: a dagger-like frigate, painted black and white like the orca whales on Earth, though vastly more narrow and infinitely more dangerous.

"That's the one. _SSV Normandy_," he replied, and Shepard nodded. It looked good. Nice and fast and agile, as a frigate needed to be.

The shuttle turned on a new heading, moving straight for the station, and the porthole turned to show the blackness of space. Against the transparent material, Shepard caught a reflection of both of them. Pressly, with his short, regulation-length mustache and beard, resplendent in his navy blue, gold-trimmed Naval uniform. And Shepard . . . .

He stared into his own face, a vicious scar running across his features, reminding everyone he encountered just how he'd earned his stripes. The scar raised memories of just how hideous his past had been. Mindoir, the Blitz, Torfan . . . he'd seen way too many people die in his time, and it felt like every one of those faces looked back into his.

"This is going to be an interesting deployment, sir," Pressly added, sitting down in his crash seat. Lieutenant Commander Shepard nodded as he turned around and settled down as well.

"I hope you're wrong, Pressly," he replied, scratching his head. "'Interesting' tends to end up with corpses. Do you know where we're going on this run?"

"Shakedown run to Eden Prime," Pressly replied. "Shouldn't be _too_ eventful, I'd wager."

Shepard frowned, nodded, and peered out the porthole once again, and lost himself in that memory once more.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **ohgodthiscrazymaniswritingamasseffectnovelizationsomeonecommithimbeforehekillshimself._

Anyway, Mass effect is awesome. So awesome I'm going to kick myself in the balls and try to write a novelization for it. If you'll notice, Shepard in this story is....something of an amalgam (Assaults rifles plus biotics? BLASPHEMY!) He's a mixture of the Ruthless/War Hero military history, with Colonist background and a Vanguard class + Assault Rifles bonus talent. Also, he likes apple pie, oragami, long walks on the beach, and murdering those batarian slaver-scumbag-bastard-cake-thieves.

Until first chapter . . . .


	2. Chapter I: Shakedown

_**Chapter I: Shakedown**_

It felt odd to be holding these kinds of meetings in broad daylight, with the open air streaming down on them and people passing by a few dozen meters beyond the bushes lining the windows. Of course, it technically wasn't daylight, _nor_ was there any "open" air to speak of in the Presidium . . . but the illusion that they weren't on a space station was nothing short of amazing. Still, Admiral Steven Hackett would have preferred a closed environment for this meeting, rather than the open-air embassies all the species in Citadel Space used. A simple directional microphone would have picked up their conversation, and he didn't trust the security barriers that Udina seemed to have such a hard-on for.

He sipped his coffee, waiting for the others to return, and thumbed through the candidates on his laptop as he lingered. To tell the truth, he and Anderson had already settled on their choice a few weeks back, in private, in an _actual_ secured conference room, but they had to sell it to Udina, who, like all politicians, was more concerned with his own hide than anything else.

Hackett turned and looked "outside," taking another sip of his coffee. The pristine white tiled walkways of the Presidium scattered out beneath him, lazily meandering over the massive freshwater rivers and lakes that ran the length of the circular structure. The government wing of the Citadel stretched in both directions, gently curving upward in an oddly inverted horizon. Being inside a ring-shaped structure had that effect.

The Admiral looked back inside as the door slid open, and Captain David Anderson stepped back inside. He exchanged nods with Hackett and sat down across from him at the circular table.

"I assume the Ambassador is taking his time, as usual?" the dark-skinned Navy captain said, and Hackett nodded. Technically, he was Anderson's superior, but the Admiral had deep respect for Anderson's capabilities and judgment, and they shared an amiable relationship. David had been the one to put forth their chosen candidate in the first place, and Hackett had agreed immediately.

"He doesn't have to cater to us soldiers," Hackett said, his voice deep and gravelly. Anderson nodded.

"Well, as long as he's out, I wanted to ask you something," the captain said, and Hackett's eyebrows rose. He nodded, prompting Anderson to continue.

"How exactly do you think the Council will react to _this_ attempt? The last time we tried this . . . ." Hackett frowned, thinking, and shrugged. It was understandable that Anderson would be concerned; after all, he'd gone through the same thing.

"I think that without that turian 'helping' things, the Council might be more open this time around," he replied. "Besides, back when you were being considered, the Alliance was a fifth the size it is now, and we're growing exponentially. Between the size of our fleet, the rate we're settling and ordering the Verge and the Traverse, the victories at Elysium and Torfan . . . I think the Council is noticing."

"I know that we really got their attention after we hammered the batarians," Anderson replied with a nod. "But still, I'm worried that they might try to exclude us again, simply because of the sheer amount of pressure they're getting."

"That pressure is from species that are jealous of our accomplishments," came a new voice, and both officers looked up, to see Ambassador Donnel Udina walk in. Unlike the two Navy officers, he was clad in a white suit of a generic cut favored by many of the aliens on the Presidium, and a lot of the humans, too. The dark-skinned space-born politician sat down with the soldiers, and folded his hands together, resting his chin atop them.

"We've done more in forty years than many of them accomplished in centuries," he continued. "They're right to be nervous about humanity as a whole." He jabbed a finger toward the table. "And _this_ is just going to prove how far we've come. They may have snubbed _you_, Captain, but they won't snub us _again_."

"I'm certain they won't," Anderson replied, and glanced at Hackett, who was busy studying the ripples in his coffee. Udina was an ambitious man, both for his own future and for humanity in general, and he viewed everyone around him as a means to advance himself or tools to strengthen his species' standing in the galactic power structure.

Naturally, neither officer liked him much. Soldiers didn't like being considered tools.

"So, where did we leave off?" Udina added, and Hackett slid the laptop around to face him. The Ambassador looked over the holographic displays, and nodded.

"Well, what about this . . . Shepard?" Udina mused as he read the file. "I see. He was raised in the colonies?"

"He knows just how tough life can be out there," Anderson explained. "His parents were killed when slavers attacked Mindoir."

"Animals," Udina muttered, scowling. "Those batarians deserved much worse than they got at Torfan. And, speaking of Torfan, I see he served in the raid on Elysium."

"He proved himself during the Blitz," Hackett added. "He managed to hold off the entire enemy army until reinforcements arrived."

"He's the only reason Elysium is still standing," Anderson added, and Udina nodded.

"Well, we can't fault his courage." He seemed to consider it for a moment, and then frowned as he continued reading. "He was at Torfan. I see his platoon took the brunt of the casualties."

"Seventy-five percent losses, I know," Hackett added. "But none of the enemy survived."

"He's aggressive," Udina said, nodding. "I like that. But his pysch evaluation marks him as potentially unstable. Some accusations that he let Mindoir cloud his judgment. Are you sure that's the kind of person we want?"

"He gets the job done," Anderson added.

"But are you sure he can handle it?" Udina asked, shaking his head.

"I don't think there's anyone else who _can_," Anderson said in full honesty. Udina considered for a moment, and then nodded, pushing the laptop back.

"Very well," he said with a rare smile. "I think this one will work out fine. I'll make the call."

* * *

_**Three Weeks Later . . . .**_

* * *

Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko could hear the grunts of exertion from clear across the cargo bay as he stepped off the humming elevator. It wasn't hard to figure out who was making them, as no one else was in the bay at this early hour of the ship's day-cycle. The lieutenant followed the noise, circling around the low, hunched form of the M-35 Mako infantry fighting vehicle locked on the starboard side of the bay, and found a small cleared area beyond it, set into an alcove of the cargo bay.

A small bench was set up in the nook, with a few weights of different sizes, and directly overhead was a pull-up bar. The limited exercise gear was all the _SSV Normandy's _crew needed for their physical maintenance; most military exercise focused on bodyweight training anyway.

Kaidan found the man he was looking for on the pull-up bar, his legs wrapped around the bar itself, and curling his upper body toward his knees with his stomach muscles. Each inverted pull-up was met with a grunt of exertion and an exhalation from the man, as he counted off.

"Thirty-four," Kaidan heard him say as he flexed his muscles, and then slowly lowered himself back to hanging upside down. "Thirty-five . . . ."

Kaidan lingered by the Mako as the Commander did his morning allotment of inverted pull-ups. He could do a good thirty himself before he tired out, but they weren't part of his personal morning PT sessions. As the Commander dropped back down, he looked up at the newcomer, and stopped.

"Morning, Lieutenant," Commander Shepard said with a nod, sweat kneading on his brow.

"Morning, Commander," Kaidan replied. "Missed you at chow."

"I was down here," Shepard replied, lowering his arms to the deck. He straightened his legs, letting his weight fall to his hands, and dropped off the bar to his feet. "I prefer to build up an appetite before I eat anyway.

"So, there something you need, Lieutenant?" Shepard asked as he toweled off, making sure to wipe off the back of his neck thoroughly, at the base of his skull. Kaidan noted the small, almost unnoticeable gray bulb right where his skull met his spine, just under the hairline.

"Captain Anderson wanted me to let you know that we just released from docking about twenty minutes ago," Kaidan explained. "We should be at the Arcturus Prime Relay in about an hour. He wants you on the bridge then."

"Understood," Shepard replied with a nod, toweling his arms. "Anything else?"

"He said to prep your combat uniform," Kaidan added, frowning. "Not sure why he wants you in armor, but I think he's expecting something. He told me and Jenkins to be ready too." Shepard shared Kaidan's frown as well; while he was a Marine, and that meant his regular working uniform was his armor, being an officer meant he was allowed to wear garrison fatigues instead of combat armor while on duty.

Unless the Captain expected them to encounter trouble. This was supposed to be just a shakedown run, but still . . . .

"Okay. That all?"

"Officially, yes," Kaidan said with a nod, and then he glanced back across the bay. "Also, sir, Nihlus was asking about you. Again." Shepard nodded at the warning.

"What did he want?"

"He was just looking for you, I guess," Kaidan replied. "Hard to tell. Turians are difficult to read, you know?"

"Yeah," Shepard replied, dropping the towel to the bench. "I'll see what he wants. That everything?"

"Yes sir," Kaidan replied. "See you on the bridge. I'm on co-pilot duty with Joker." Shepard nodded again, and Kaidan moved back around the Mako and toward the elevator. The Commander sat back down on the bench and took a sip of water from the bottle he'd stashed behind it, considering what Nihlus wanted with him this time. The _Normandy_ was only a frigate, and as such space was at a premium. Even so, he kept constantly running into the alien, more than usual for a ship this small.

Shepard didn't like him. Nihlus wasn't Alliance military, and thus wasn't part of Captain Anderson's crew, making him the odd one out of the otherwise exclusively human crew of the ship. However, the _Normandy_ was also modified turian design, developed by both turian and human engineers - one of the biggest diplomatic breakthroughs the two species had made in the last thirty-odd years. Considering first contact with the Turian Hierarchy had been at the ends of their mass accelerators, that was impressive.

Shepard frowned, took another sip of his water bottle, and rose. He cut across the bay and into the cargo elevator that connected the lower decks of the _Normandy_ - cargo, armory, and engineering - with the crew sections and the command deck. As the elevator began its achingly slow transit up to the next deck, the Commander mused over Nihlus' purpose here.

What put Shepard most on edge was that Nihlus wasn't Hierarchy military, either; he was a Spectre, an elite covert agent and direct representative of the Citadel Council. Why was a Citadel agent riding along on this shakedown run? Sure, the _Normandy_ was cutting edge technology, the first actual stealth-capable spacecraft in the collective history of the Citadel, but while that was big, it didn't necessarily rate a Spectre's presence, at least in Shepard's opinion.

Then again, a stealth ship would be a boon to any Spectre operation. The _Normandy_ was exclusively human-controlled as well, giving the fledgling Systems Alliance a very hefty chip in the galactic balance of power. The hull, the weapons, and the general structural design of the frigate was turian in nature, but the Tantalus Drive Core and the stealth system had been almost exclusively developed by human scientists, building off the expertise of turian and volus mass effect engineers.

Shepard moved past the mess, sandwiched between the elevators and the crew quarters, nodding to the few off-duty crew as he passed. The actual crew quarters were rather unglamorous; a long hallway lined with a dozen sleeping pods, most of their face ends transparent to show they were unoccupied. A couple were opaque and gray like the metal they were built out of, indicating crew members catching rack time. The pods were probably one of the few places crew could get any privacy on a little frigate like this.

Past the pods was an alcove set into the wall, containing the showers. Like the pods, its outer door was transparent, but as Shepard climbed inside it turned opaque. He stripped off his sweaty training outfit and let the cool water run over his tired muscles. As the minutes passed, he mused again over what Nihlus was here for.

Spectres. They had a romantic air to them, cowboy cops and secret agents combined into a gun-toting, law-enforcing package. The Alliance had been trying to get a human into the Spectres for a long time, and Shepard knew he had been put on the list for candidacy, but doubted he'd rate high enough, and in all honesty he didn't care for the job much. He was a soldier, not an assassin. He could do more to defend against another Mindoir or Elysium or Akuze as an officer than an agent of an alien power. Torfan had proved that.

Memories of that incident made him pause in the middle of his bathing, and he closed his eyes, trying to shake away the screams of his troops, and the scent of blood and cooked human flesh.

After about five minutes of cleaning off, he shut down the shower. Warm air jets immediately came on, drying him off within a couple of minutes, and Shepard took a moment to shave back his beard as he dried off. Systems Alliance Navy regulations on beards were not as strict as many Earth-based militaries', and a lot of troops wore goatees or mustaches. He kept a tightly shaved beard and mustache.

Shepard dressed in his day uniform and stepped back out of the shower, freshened and ready for another day's duty.

* * *

_"The Arcturus Prime Relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence."_

Shepard heard Joker's voice over the intercom, his tone unusually businesslike as he announced the approach to the Charon/Arcturus Prime relay. Maybe he wasn't the complete goof-off that the commander had made him for.

_"We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination."_

Shepard walked up the stairs from the crew section and into the _Normandy's_ combat information center, set aft of the bridge and the operations corridor. A semicircle of orange-lit, outward-facing consoles ringed the CIC, with a central platform looking over the entire area. In the center of the CIC was a massive hologram, looming over all the naval officers and crew working around the room. At the moment, the hologram showed a sensor map of the local area, with the Charon Relay highlighted and quickly growing larger.

Marines saluted him as he passed, and he nodded in reply. Unlike the Navy crewmen, they wore gray armor plating, sidearms holstered at their hips and assault rifles affixed to their suits' backs. The Navy officers wore their blue day uniforms, with gold trim, while the lower-ranking enlisted crew wore generic black and blue Systems Alliance garrison fatigues.

_"Relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector."_

Shepard nodded as he passed Pressly, who returned the nod before going back to work at his navigation station. The rest of the crew was on edge, intently monitoring the screens as the Normandy attempted its first mass relay jump. Shepard walked past them and headed up the crew corridor connecting the CIC to the bridge.

_"All stations, secure for transit."_

On either side of the crew corridor were chairs set before large holographic monitors, with crew members working on heat management, drive core discharge status, stealth systems, power control, damage control, weapons, and other shipboard operations.

Like the CIC crew, the enlisted personnel manning these stations were watching their monitors closely, keeping an eye on every system of the ship in case something went wrong. They weren't just going on a shakedown run, they were testing two cutting-edge pieces of technology, which meant anything could go bad, and if it did, they were in deep trouble.

_"Board is green. Approach run has begun."_

There was a faint vibration in the deck of the ship as Joker rearranged the Normandy's quartet of engines, tightening them together for maximum forward acceleration. They were getting close to the Arcturus Prime Relay now.

Shepard passed through the crew corridor and stepped into the small bridge, and peered out the forward windows. The portholes were the only concession the Alliance's engineers had made to the old romantic notion of windows in space ships, and out in the vista of star-speckled space, Shepard saw the Relay.

_"Hitting the relay in three . . . ."_

It was enormous, a two kilometer-long double-pronged dagger sitting in the blackness, orbiting Pluto where the ice moon of Charon had once been. At the rear of the mass relay, Shepard could see a glittering blue conflagration, a pair of rapidly spinning rings encircling a miniature sun of electric blue light. Gleaming with the light of the element zero reaction at its core, the mass relay seemed like an inhabited space station, lights blinking on and off along its length.

_"Two . . . ."_

They drew closer, and as they approached the artifact, the light became so intense that the bridge windows darkened to almost complete opacity to blot out the brightness. A faint shudder went through the ship as the relay seemed to sense their approach, and an arc of energy lanced out of the relay's core, engulfing the vessel. Lightning sparked off the Normandy's kinetic barriers, flickering and jumping wildly as it drew closer to the artifact.

_"One . . . ."_

There was a surge of energy, an intense shuddering running through the entirety of the _SSV Normandy_, and then . . . .

They were elsewhere.

In the blink of an eye, they had gone from Sol to a completely different cluster, hundreds of light years away.

Shepard looked around the bridge, and then back up the crew corridor, making sure everything was still secure. He saw crewmembers visibly relaxing, their features highlighted by the orange glow from their monitors.

Well, they hadn't all died horribly. That was a good start.

"Thrusters, check," reported the slight, bearded man sitting in the pilot's chair at the center of the bridge. He was bathed in light from a dozen holographic monitors, his hand flicking through a complex weave of symbols arrayed around his waist.

"Navigation, check," Flight Officer Jeff "Joker" Moreau reported, his tone still the serious, businesslike one Shepard wasn't accustomed to. "Internal emissions sink engaged. All systems online." He paused. "Drift . . . just under fifteen hundred K."

"Fifteen hundred is good," came a sharp, metallic voice from beside Shepard. Looming on the other side of the bridge was a tall, slender form, vaguely resembling an avian in his lean, lanky shape. Dark crimson armor adorned his form, and his slender, bony face was a mask of cartilage painted with blood-red and bone-white tribal lines. Glittering green eyes were nestled inside the turian's mask-like face.

"You captain will be pleased," Nihlus Kryik said, and then turned to leave, giving Shepard a quick glance and a nod. There was silence on the bridge for several long seconds, until the turian Spectre was out of earshot, before anyone spoke.

"I hate that guy," Joker muttered, all pretensions of professionalism flying out the airlock as he slouched in his pilot's chair.

In the copilot's seat on the starboard side of the bridge, Kaidan Alenko frowned and glanced Joker's way.

"Nihlus just gave you a compliment," he said, disbelieving. "So . . . you hate him."

"Look," Joker replied quickly, his tone annoyed. "You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom, that's good. I just shot us halfway across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead, so that's incredible!" He grunted.

"Besides, Spectres are trouble. I don't like having him on board. Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid," Kaidan muttered. "The Council helped fund this project, they have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Yeah," Joker replied. "That is the _official _story." He shook his head. "Only an idiot believes the official story."

"They don't send Spectres on shakedown runs," Shepard commented, and Joker nodded.

"I'm telling you, there's more going on here than-"

"_Joker," _came a voice over the intercom. Shepard straightened reflexively; it was the voice of Captain David Anderson. _"Status report."_

"Just cleared the mass relay, Captain," Joker replied quickly, professionalism springing back into his voice. "Stealth systems engaged, everything looks solid."

"_Good," _Anderson said. _"Find us a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want mission reports relayed back to Alliance brass before we reach Eden Prime."_

"Aye-aye, Captain," Joker replied. "Better brace yourself, sir. I think Nihlus is headed your way."

"_He's _already_ here, Lieutenant," _Anderson replied, a frown audible in his tone. Joker cringed and shook his head. Beside him, Kaidan mouthed an "oops." _"Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing."_

"I'm on my way," Shepard said quickly, and started back down the crew corridor.

"Is it just me," Joker muttered, "Or does the Captain always seem a little pissed off?"

"Only when he's talking to you, Joker," Kaidan replied.

Shepard barely heard that last part, instead hurrying down the crew corridor as fast as he could without actually breaking into a run. The strange circumstances were putting him on edge, but he had a suspicion that Anderson was about to tell him. Normally, during operational briefings, captains would call all the department heads together, but if it was just Shepard, the captain, and Nihlus . . . .

"He just walked by, like he was on a mission," he heard a voice speaking, and Shepard glanced over to the CIC. Pressly was talking with someone over the intercom at his console.

_"He's a Spectre. They're always on a mission," _Shepard heard a voice reply from the console - it sounded like Chief Adams, _Normandy's_ head engineer. _"You should relax, Pressly, you'll give yourself an ulcer."_

Pressly frowned and closed the channel as the Commander got closer, and then looked up. He gave Shepard a nod.

"Looks like we had a good transition, Commander," he reported. "Everything's running fine."

"Heard you talking about our turian guest," Shepard said, gesturing towards the console.

"Just having a chat with Adams in Engineering, sir," Pressly said quickly. "Didn't mean to cause any trouble."

"Not accusing you of trying," Shepard said. "You have some concerns? Speak freely."

"Well, it's just . . . ." Pressly said, and glanced back toward the rear of the CIC, where the comms room was situated. "This doesn't add up."

"A Spectre on a shakedown run doesn't make sense, I know," Shepard said with a nod.

"Exactly," Pressly muttered. "But there's more to it than that. We're just supposed to be testing out the stealth system, so why is Captain Anderson in charge? We don't need him for a shakedown. Plus, we're fully staffed. Why would we need to spend the money and risk the security leaks to have Marines and extra crew on board instead of just the engineers?"

"Something's up, I agree," Shepard replied with a nod. "I'll talk with the Captain when I see him, get some answers. Carry on."

"Aye-aye, sir," Pressly replied as Shepard moved past him and around the CIC. Time to find out the truth of this shakedown run.

* * *

The comms room was one of the larger individual compartments on the _Normandy_, mostly because it served as the briefing and meeting area for the ship's officers and senior enlisted. It was protected by an intricate series of electronic countermeasures, sound-deadening materials, and anti-surveillance devices, making it the most secure room on the entire ship.

As Shepard walked in, he saw the large holo-screen on the opposite end of the room, displaying a panoramic view of a rolling green landscape punctuated by the slender white blades of habitat towers. Livestock wandered idly around the green pastures, as tractors and farming drones went about their business in the wide, verdant crop fields. Shepard knew the picture well enough; it was one of many commonly circulated pictures of Eden Prime.

Standing in front of the holo-screen was the crimson and black specter of Nihlus, who turned as the door slid closed behind the human.

"Commander Shepard," Nihlus said with a nod. "I was hoping you would get here first. I wanted to have a bit of a talk."

"What about?" Shepard asked, stepping into the middle of the circular room and facing Nihlus evenly. The Spectre's head twitched a bit, the bony, curving mandibles on either side of his thin mouth widening a hair.

"This world we're headed for, Eden Prime," he said, gesturing to the wall behind him and the idyllic scenery it displayed. "I've heard it is quite beautiful."

"Wouldn't know," Shepard replied with a shrug. "I've never been there."

"But you know _of_ it," Nihlus replied, looking back toward the display, which cycled to show a different set of farmlands. "It's become something of a symbol to your people, hasn't it? Proof that humanity can settle new worlds, establish new colonies, and protect them."

He turned back toward Shepard, green eyes glittering.

"But how safe is it, _really_?"

What Shepard hated the most about turians was that they were difficult to read. The cartilage-like material that made up their outer layer of skin was flexible, but not as much as the soft skin of a human or asari. Turian faces were masks; they barely moved except for their mouths and mandibles, and any motion that did take place in their faces was hard to read. Between that, the distorting tribal facepaint they wore, and their odd, metallic voices, it was hard to tell what they were thinking.

"What are you suggesting?" Shepard asked, trying to figure out whether Nihlus had just made a threat or was simply asking an honest question. With turians, it was hard to tell the difference. Oftentimes, there wasn't much of one in the first place.

"The galaxy can be a very dangerous place, Shepard," Nihlus replied, his tone leading. "Is humanity truly ready to operate on the galactic stage?"

The human's eyes narrowed. He knew _exactly_ how bad it could get out here in the Attican Traverse, and Nihlus had to have known that, as well as how the commander reacted to threats against human colonies.

Nihlus was pushing his buttons, probably trying to gauge his reaction, and there was a gleam in the turian's eyes that was universal in anything that had eyes: interest. Okay then.

He was about to explain Nihlus just how well he understood the dangers when the door to the comm room slid open. They both glanced up, and Shepard straightened reflexively as Captain David Anderson walked into the room.

"I think its time we told the Commander what's really going on," he said, walking across the room.

Shepard held nothing but respect for Captain Anderson; he was possibly the most decorated ship commander in the entire Alliance Navy, and had earned every medal and citation he'd been given. He hadn't started as a Navy crewman; Anderson had begun his career as a Marine, just like Shepard, having fought through nearly every major military campaign the Alliance had waged in the bloody thirty-odd years since the First Contact War. There was no one he'd rather serve under, and when Anderson spoke, everyone listened.

Nihlus nodded, his mandibles tightening against his mouth and the cartilage around his eyes narrowing.

"This is far more than a simple shakedown run," the turian said, and Shepard shrugged.

"I guessed as much," he answered the unspoken question, and Nihlus let out a quiet "hm" of approval.

"We're making a covert pickup on Eden Prime," Anderson explained, gesturing toward the holo-screen. "That's why we're taking the _Normandy_. We need the stealth systems for this operation."

"What's on Eden Prime?" Shepard asked.

"An archeological dig team was exploring some ruins," the captain said, his voice quiet and serious. "They unearthed a working artifact, a beacon of some kind. We think it's Prothean."

Shepard froze, eyes widening.

"Intact Prothean technology?" he asked, and Nihlus' mandibles widened a hair.

"Thousands of years old, yes, but in good working order," Anderson said. Shepard blinked, considering the implications. A working example of Prothean technology was a serious find. Simple technology, like low-grade power generators, elevators, mechanical equipment, and the like, were often found in Prothean ruins, but advanced technology, like data caches, were incredibly rare. To find a piece of actual working, advanced Prothean technology - outside of the Mass Relays - was almost unheard of.

"This is _big_, Shepard," Anderson said as the implications caught up with him. "The ruins we found on Mars jumped our technology ahead two hundred years, and that was an observation outpost. Who knows what kind of information this beacon might have? It could contain data on new technologies, mass relay research, weapons archives . . . ."

"Obviously," Nihlus added, stepping back into the conversation, "This goes beyond mere _human _interests."

So, _that_ was what the Spectre was here for - to make sure the Council got its fair share of whatever secrets were hidden in the beacon.

"Why is the Council getting involved?" Shepard asked, eyeing Nihlus in a much more suspicious light now. "This is a human colony. Alliance territory."

"We're part of the Citadel now, Shepard," Anderson reminded him. "We have been, ever since the First Contact War. The Council wants that beacon for the benefit of all member species, not just humanity."

"That Prothean beacon is critical, Shepard," Nihlus added. "Whatever it contains is of galactic importance."

"This is bigger than us, Shepard," Anderson added. "And this operation isn't just about the beacon."

"What do you mean?" Shepard asked, confused. What could be anywhere as important than a piece of working Prothean technology?

"I'm here to observe not only the beacon," Nihlus said, crossing his arms over his torso armor. "But you, as well, Commander."

"Me?" Shepard said, frowning, meeting the alien's green eyes. "Why?"

"You're being considered as a candidate to join the Spectres, " Anderson said, and Shepard's face scrunched up as he heard that. The majority of the Council's agents came from Council species, meaning salarians, turians, and asari.

"Why me?" he asked, trying to sort out the implications. This was the first he'd heard that he was being considered, and he was put off that he hadn't been consulted ahead of time. Humanity had been petitioning for human Spectres since practically the day they'd joined the Citadel.

"I was the one who put your name forward to the Council," Nihlus explained, mandibles twitching. Shepard narrowed his eyes. The Hierarchy and the Alliance weren't perfect friends.

"Not all turians resent humanity," Nihlus explained, sensing his suspicions. "Surely you know that, like your species, the more vocal elements of my people are not the majority. Our species may not be on the best of terms after the First Contact War, but I don't let that cloud my judgment.

"You held of an entire army in the Skyllian Blitz. At Torfan, you showed a willingness to take whatever measures were necessary to complete your objective, even at the cost of your own troops' lives. The Spectres are always looking for truly exceptional individuals. I don't care what species you are; I care that you can get the job done."

Shepard frowned, but agreed with the turian's logic. Pragmatism was common among the species, and being universally militarized had that effect.

"I assume this is good for the Alliance," Shepard said, looking to Anderson, and he nodded.

Great. This whole issue that had gone completely over his head happened to be political, too.

"Humanity needs this," he said. "If the Council is willing to let a human into the Spectres, it'll show just how far the Alliance has come."

Symbolism, too. Shepard could see this turning out _badly_ if it backfired. Getting political interests involved with military affairs of this magnitude was a recipe for disaster.

"Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together," Nihlus added. "I want to see how well you operate before making my final recommendation."

"Are you expecting trouble on this?" Shepard asked, catching the implications of what Nihlus was saying.

"The beacon is important," Anderson said with a nod. "Eden Prime is secure, but something of this magnitude is critical. The Attican Traverse is an unstable place. There's all manner of trouble out here; pirates, raiders, privateers. We have enough trouble with the batarians and the Terminus Systems as it is. If they catch wind of this, they may decide the beacon is worth any risk, even attacking an Alliance colony."

"Then we'd best get ready," Shepard asked, and glanced to Nihlus. He still didn't like the Spectre, but he'd gotten a measure of where the turian stood, and a person whose intentions he understood was better than one whom he didn't. "I think we'll-"

_"Captain!" _Joker's voice came in over the intercom, intruding into their conversation. _"I've got an incoming distress signal from Eden Prime!"_

"Patch it through!" Anderson ordered, and Shepard's blood ran cold. He knew, even before the holo-screen shifted to show the message, that someone had already beaten them to the punch.

Shepard watched the next minute or so of footage, and as he did so, a deep, cold chill ran through him, far different from the electric heat of his implants. He knew then, without a doubt, that something far worse than a simple pirate raid had come to Eden Prime.

"Joker," Anderson said as the message ended. "Take us in, fast and quiet. This mission just got a lot more complicated."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**One of the biggest issues with writing this particular chapter was dealing with that omgheug chunk of dialogue that serves as the lead-in for the game. Great for exposition when you're delivering an interactive story, not so great for sitting back and reading passively. Also, I had to massage quite a bit of the dialogue for this chapter, and I'll be doing the same for later on.

As you my have noted, the Shepard in this particular story is not as . . . eager as one would expect. I've got a very solid idea in my head of how I want "this" Shepard's story to unfold and how his particular thought processes operate. His mixed background - particularly his past and experiences as a biotic - are going to be a major part of this story.

Until next chapter . . . .


	3. Chapter II: Smoke and Death

_**Chapter Two: Smoke and Death**_

It was an alien sky. That was strange, because it was a world that had been brought under the yoke of humanity, the atmosphere quietly adjusted to be more comfortable to human biology and the ground tilled and shaped to support just over three and a half million human lives. The sky normally looked like that of any Earthly sky, pastoral blue mixed with white clouds.

The sky was now a dull red, and the white clouds were distant and shrouded by the inky black stains of smoke rising from the fields and cities. The enormous arcologies and tall, narrow white spires rising out of the ground over the farmlands were ablaze, with the angry red of mass accelerator tracers and the chill blue of alien weapons fire lanced back and forth between buildings. The planet had been named Eden Prime.

Today, it was hell.

The roar of engines receded, yet lingered in his ears as he crept forward from the landing zone. He took point, assault rifle in hand, shifting between hunting for targets while watching his head-up-display to keep track of the rest of his fireteam and his surroundings.

Through the helmet he could smell the familiar stenches of combat and war: the acrid taste of smoke, with the pungent, searing stink of burnt human flesh. Mixed in were the scents of the forest they were sliding through, the aroma of wood and grass and life. In the distance, the rumbling thunderblasts of mass accelerator fire and the hiss of the invaders' weapons were loud and clear, even kilometers away.

They paused by a brook, spotting movement. Something drifted out of the green leaves – now a russet color in the harsh, infernal lighting – and two assault rifles and a heavy pistol whipped around to address the form. It was slow and bulbous, a floating mass of flesh stretched over gas, long tendrils hanging down into the water of the wide, shallow stream.

"What the hell are those?" whispered one of the soldiers.

"Just a gasbag," replied another, the youngest of the fireteam. "They're harmless." They stepped around the native life, down the stream, water splashing around their gray boots. In their dark gray armor, the trio of Marines was nearly invisible, just drab shadows moving among the leaves. They moved out of the brook after a few moments, finding a break in the trees, and advanced.

The leader paused, holding up a fist, and crouched. The others moved up, sweeping the area, and saw the trio of slumped forms lying in the grass. They were unrecognizable as individuals, their skin cooked and burnt nearly to the bone. Acrid stink wafted off of the human corpses, and they could see pieces of molten and twisted armor next to the bodies.

The squad leader rose, and gestured for them to keep moving. Neither of his companions looked at his face, but they had read their leader's service record. They knew what he had to be feeling at that moment.

Shepard remembered Elysium. Shepard remembered Mindior.

He paused, the smoke drifting through his helmet being tinged with that unique, sweet-sap flavor of the colony trees from more than thirty years ago. The alien weapons rumbling and hissing in the distance became intermixed with batarian mass accelerators, and the distant mechanical warbling of combat drones was threaded with the cries of children and adults being killed or herded by the slavers.

He fought back the memory, which clawed up into him from the depths of his mind. He had a mission to carry out, and he couldn't afford the distraction.

He had a smorgasbord of memories and distractions to deal with at the moment, and it was with some difficulty that he pushed them away. Seeing those bodies and inhaling the scent of the burnt flesh brought back too many dark spots in his history. Mindior, first and foremost, followed by Elsyium. Then Torfan.

Lieutenant Commander Shepard pushed the memory back, and pressed on.

* * *

To the rear and left of Commander Shepard was Corporal Richard L. Jenkins, covering the left side of the fireteam's advance as they splashed through the brook. He himself was suffering as badly as his commander, as this planet was his home. This particular stretch of the wilderness had been his playground when he'd been younger, and as they moved through the brush, he gradually began to take the lead.

Shepard fell back, the pair smoothly and silently switching positions as the Commander acknowledged Jenkins' understanding of this terrain. At the rear, Lieutenant Alenko kept their back covered. Jenkins led them out of the brook and into a copse of trees that he was relieved to see were still there, exactly like he remembered from a decade ago.

They pushed through, the Corporal licking his lips, his mouth dry. He did his best to calm his breathing and keep his weapon still as they pushed through the foliage and moved along the edge of the ridge.

Shepard brought them up short with a hiss, barely audible. They dropped to a crouch at the edge of the trees, sweeping the area for any threats. Nothing presented itself, but over the edge of the cliff face, they could see a pair of arcologies, stabbing up into the sky like white-bladed swords.

They were burning.

Fires had erupted on several levels of the skyscraper-sized structures, and from both the ground and the air they could see the marks of tracer fire from mass accelerators. Beating back against them were the more substantial blue bolts of the invaders' weapons, rising from below or lancing down from above to tear through the structures.

The sight shook Jenkins more than the video the Commander had sent them as they'd prepared for action on the ground. He remembered the brief while they had been suiting up, and seeing the Spectre Nihlus arming up with enough firepower to drop a battalion.

* * *

_Captain Anderson had the foresight to have them prepare their weapons and gear ahead of time, and it took Shepard's team less than five minutes to get to the cargo bay, suit up, and gather their equipment._

_"Oh, man," muttered Jenkins, who was running a diagnostic on his Lancer rifle beside the Commander. "This is crazy. I grew up on Eden Prime."_

_"Keep it cool, Jenkins," Shepard said, nodding toward the young Marine as he put on his helmet. Aside from Shepard and Lieutenant Alenko, the corporal was the only other soldier in the bay prepping for combat._

_"Don't worry, sir, I will," Corporal Jenkins replied quickly, checking his rifle as he finished loading it. Behind his visor, his blue eyes "Just, this hits close to home."_

_"Do we even know what we're up against?" Kaidan asked as he loaded his pistol. Shepard shook his head, checking his suit's HUD to make sure the armor's shields were fully charged. They were._

_"The video I sent you is all we have," he replied. _

_The video in question had been a sixty-second transmission from a squad of Alliance Marines who were pinned down and surrounded by an unknown enemy, calling for reinforcements. The only things they'd been able to glean from the video were that the Marines had taken heavy losses, and were engaging an enemy with weapons that clearly weren't mass accelerators; they had made a quiet electrical noise, as opposed to the sonic booms that accompanied accelerator fire._

_The end of the video had presented the most disturbing part. None of them could really describe it, but to Jenkins, the camera filming the battle had panned upward as the one filming the video had been shot, and it showed an object in the smoke-stained skies over Eden Prime. It had looked for all the world like a massive black hand reaching down toward the planet's surface, wreathed in red lightning._

_And from the way the Commander had described it, the reactions from Captain Anderson and Nihlus indicated they had never seen it, either. _

_"So, unknown enemy that's overpowered the local Marine garrison and has a giant metallic hand covered in blood-red lightning," Kaidan added, nodding. "Fair assessment of what we're up against."_

_"Whatever it is, we're taking it down, right?" Jenkins added, his features set, and Shepard nodded. Like everyone else on the Normandy, Jenkins knew enough of the Commander's past to understand what he'd been through. Shepard knew what I was like to lose a home like this, and agreed with Jenkins' need to get down there and take the fight to the enemy._

_"Don't get yourself killed out there, Jenkins," he said. "The worst kind of Marine is a wasted one."_

_"Yes, sir," Jenkins replied quickly._

"Commander, two minutes to drop zone one,"_ Joker cut in over the intercom, and Shepard put a hand to his radio._

_"Copy that, Joker. Drop the ramp when we get close enough."_

"I know the drill,"_ he replied quickly, and then closed the channel._

_As they were speaking, the elevator to the upper decks slid open, and out stepped Captain Anderson, with Nihlus behind him. The latter still wore his black and red armor, though now he was outfitted with a half-dozen weapons affixed to hardpoints on his back and waist._

_"What's the word, Captain?" Shepard asked as they approached._

_"None yet," Anderson replied. "We haven't gotten a message back from Arcturus yet, so we're going in on our own. No contact with any enemy ships in orbit, which means whatever brought them here is on the ground now."_

_"How's this going to work?" Shepard asked._

_"Your team is the muscle on this operation, Commander," Anderson replied. "Move in at the second drop zone, and head straight for the dig site. You'll be landing at the best LZ we can find, which is two kilometers from the site. Coordinates are already uploaded."_

"One minute to drop zone one,"_ Joker cut in. _"Deploying ramp."

_The forward entrance to the cargo bay shuddered open, and immediately the quintet were hammered with blasts of wind whipping through the bay. They stepped to the side as yellow light filtered into the bay, the air tinged with scents of smoke and violence beyond. Nihlus was moving toward the bay doors even before they opened._

_"Nihlus, you're not coming with us?" Jenkins asked._

_"I move faster on my own," the turian replied, checking the shotgun in his hands._

_The incoming wave of air slowed, and outside they could see the ground rising up to meet them. A nondescript patch of grass atop a cliff near some blade habitat towers became visible, though none of them could immediately place it. Without waiting for further words, Nihlus dashed out the door. He dropped to the ground a few meters below and moved off._

_"The beacon is your primary objective," Anderson continued. "We don't have the manpower to secure the entire colony on Eden Prime, so your ground team is going straight for the beacon. Your team and Nihlus will drop in separately. He'll provide forward recon for your unit. Otherwise, I want radio silence. Normandy will stay on-station to provide air cover for the Marine garrison and to pick you up once you've found the beacon."_

"_Are we taking the Mako?" Shepard asked, to which Anderson shook his head._

"_The terrain we'll be operating in around where the beacon was found is heavily wooded and rocky," he said. "The Mako won't fit very well." _

_"What about survivors?" Kaidan asked as they peeled away from the first drop point. Joker didn't bother closing the ramp._

_"Helping survivors is a secondary objective," Anderson said, shaking his head. "Your top priority is that beacon. Get in and recover it before __they__ do." Shepard nodded. Whoever "they" were, he was going to make _damned_ sure they didn't succeed._

_"We'll take care of it, Captain," he reassured Anderson._

_"I know you will, Commander," he said. "The mission's yours now, Shepard. Good luck."_

* * *

"Jenkins, you're native," Shepard said, watching down the length of the ridgeline. "Approach?"

"Uh," Jenkins murmured, pulling up the local topographical maps on his helmet HUD. The team had been chosen for maximum effectiveness in this environment. Jenkins was a rookie, but he was also a native to Eden Prime, making him their prime scout and assault trooper. Lieutenant Alenko was the fireteam's support; aside from being a technical expert and trained in electronic warfare, he was also a potent biotic and a skilled field medic. Shepard filled in the team leader role and could supplement Kaidan's biotics with his own.

The corporal checked the location they were in, while Shepard and Alenko watched their front and rear, respectively. "Okay, there's the dig site. Let's see . . . ."

A second later, a route appeared on the HUDs of both officers. The path traced along the ridge, then through some woods for a length before approaching the dig site from the southwest.

"This is the quickest route using this terrain," he explained.

"Don't like that ridgeline," Kaidan muttered. "Not a lot of good cover."

"There's some boulders along the approach," Jenkins said. "Looks like from a rockfall. Bounding cover should take us through quickly enough." Shepard scanned the ridgeline, and nodded.

"Agreed," he said. "I'm on point. Move." They moved through the trees out into the open, Shepard taking cover behind the first boulder. In the distance, they could see heavy gunfire and flashes of light, and the sounds of battle were intensifying.

"Sounds like combat nearby," Kaidan mused, and Shepard nodded, cocking his head as he did so. He could pick out the higher pitch of man-portable mass accelerators and what he guessed were the enemy's equivalent, but closer, just barely audible over the larger battle in the distance. Alenko had good ears. He glanced to Jenkins, who frowned behind his helmet's visor.

"I put it about half a klick in the direction we're headed," the corporal whispered.

"Agreed," Shepard said. "Watch your fire, there could be friendlies. Jenkins, take point."

Jenkins acknowledged the order and slipped forward through the boulders, edging out into the open. He moved up to cover and waved them forward; now that they were in hostile territory, the fireteam was advancing by fire and maneuver, with two men covering a third while he moved up. Shepard followed Jenkins and took cover behind a boulder, followed by Kaidan, who moved behind a tree stump. Shepard waved a hand for Jenkins to advance, and he started forward.

Then the corporal was dead.

One hundred meters ahead, from within a copse of trees, there was a flicker of smooth, active movement. At the edge of Shepard's radar, he picked up a horde of active element zero cores.

Then a half-dozen airborne shapes suddenly flitted around the trees and boulders nearly eighty meters away. They opened fire, loosing pulsing bolts of white-hot energy that tore into the corporal in mid-stride. More than twenty of the thin beams lanced out, punching through his shields and his armor like they were paper instead of focused kinetic barriers and ablative combat armor.

He let out a gasp, little more than a sigh, and stopped in place, twitching as the beams cut through him.

They were drones, little crab-like airborne shells of a dark gray-blue metal, with gleaming sensors set into their fronts and elongated cannons slung beneath them. They zipped toward Jenkins, pumping out bolt after bolt of killing fire as he fell backward.

Then Shepard and Kaidan were firing. They depressed the triggers on their weapons, putting a dozen sand-sized slugs of armor-piercing material at the attacking drones.

A five-round burst erupted from Shepard's Lancer, the recoil-absorbing stock hitting his shoulder hard. The hypervelocity rounds ripped across the intervening distance and peppered the lead drone, punching through the glittering blue shell of its kinetic barriers. It spun around, sparking wildly, and one of the rounds must have hit something important, as it exploded a second later. A second burst put down the next drone, ripping it nearly in half and sending it crashing to the dirt.

Alenko let out two quick shots from his pistol and dropped back behind cover. As he did so, the lieutenant gripped his fist tightly, and reality shifted and twisted around him. A shining layer of repelling force formed just a few inches over his skin, wreathing his body in a dark blue cocoon-like barrier. As Kaidan rolled out of cover to fire again, a pair of shots slashed toward him, deflecting off the biotic barrier.

Kaidan zoomed in with his pistol's limited scope and squeezed, loosing two more quick shots at the strange drone. The first deflected off its shield, but the second punched clean through its glowing forward sensor array. The machine toppled end over end to crash into a tree trunk.

A fourth drone was pivoting to fire on Kaidan when another five-round burst tore through its shields and body. The remaining two dropped back behind cover, and then the remaining pair of Marines saw them withdrawing on their sensor displays.

Within seconds, Kaidan was moving up to Jenkins as Shepard charged ahead, taking a position where he could cover the lieutenant and shield him with his body.

The issue was academic, Kaidan realized as he crouched over Jenkins' body. His torso was a mess of dozens of small, cauterized holes that can cut clean through his armor. His kinetic barriers had stopped probably the first few beams, and the armor had stood up to the same amount, but the sheer number of weapons and their rate of fire has sliced through his body and both burned and shredded his lungs and heart.

"Jenkins is gone," he breathed, reached down through the corporal's helmet and pushing back his visor. He closed the dead Marine's eyes. "Ripped right through his shields. He never had a chance."

"Understood," Shepard said, nodding. "Secure his gear."

Kaidan nodded, feeling a bit like a ghoul as he removed Jenkins' weapons and his extra medigel packs. He wouldn't need them, after all. The lieutenant glanced to Shepard, who was pointedly not looking at the body.

Kaidan wondered what Shepard he was looking at right now: the Hero of Elysium, or the Butcher of Torfan? Or someone completely different?

"Gear secured," Kaidan said, moving up beside Shepard, who nodded.

"I'm on point," he hissed, waiting until Kaidan had his sidearm raised, and then moved ahead.

They kept their eyes open for the remaining two drones as they cut across the ridgeline toward the woods on the far side. Nothing came out to threaten them, and their local sensors showed no sign of any element zero cores. If the enemy drones were out there, they were staying hidden and using minimal power.

As they got under the trees, a voice chirped over their radio.

_"Shepard,"_ came Nihlus' voice. _"I'm approaching the dig site from the north. Hostiles everywhere."_ The HUD map on Shepard's helmet flashed with an icon, indicating where Nihlus was located in relation to them.

"Copy," Shepard replied. "Approaching from the south. Be advised, hostile drone units have been sighted. We have a man down."

_"Acknowledged,"_ was Nihlus' terse reply, and then everything was silent again.

* * *

Movement came to him on his suit's display, accompanied by the faint sounds of footsteps. Nihlus froze in place, body tensing, and he listened intently. He was rewarded a few seconds later, by a couple of faint, mechanical buzzes, from the far side of the complex of ruins he was working his way through. On the sensor display, he saw two active element zero cores seventy meters away, and the clatter of shaped metal moving regularly across stone accompanied their movements.

He counted no fewer than ten hostiles around the dig site itself. Nothing he couldn't handle with a little observation and preparation, but it wasn't his job to kill on this mission – it was to observe. Shepard's team had the firepower.

_Had_, he thought bitterly. One man was down already. They probably could have deployed all of the _Normandy's_ marine compliment, which would have given them a full combat squad, but that was too late now.

This enemy. It was strange, but as he'd moved through the hills, woods, and ruins and had observed the enemy, he rapidly became convinced they were a breed of synthetics, though he was unfamiliar with them. Something about their design reminded him of quarians . . . .

Quarians.

"Damn," Nihlus said, checking the recordings he'd taken of the first few he'd seen. He then emerged from cover and moved up toward the pair he's sighted, heading west. He got a dozen meters closer, and carefully observed them.

They were humanoid, lithe, slender synthetics built of a dark gray metal, with black exposed cabling running outside their bodies. Their heads were serpentine, ending with gleaming lights that were no doubt their sensor systems. Dark, oblong rifles were held in their hands, and everything about their design was curved and smooth, like they had been sculpted from marble instead of assembled from metal.

And they were intelligent. They weren't drones or combat machines. They moved and operated like thinking entities, and the buzzing sounds they were making were obvious communications.

There came little doubt in Nihlus' mind as he moved away from the synthetics, circling around the ruins.

They were geth.

Geth had emerged from beyond the Perseus Veil. That was bad. That was very, very bad.

The geth were moving away from the ruins. He double-checked the topography maps, and his mandibles widened a hair. There was what looked like a small human settlement near the dig site – a series of trailers for the archeologists, and a short distance away, a rail line for the construction teams that had unearthed the ruins in the first place, which in turn ran to a rail hub that was attached to a spaceport.

The geth were headed that way, and if his suit's sensors were any indicator, there were more in that direction. If they were headed in that direction, that was as good a reason as any to reconnoiter.

"Shepard," he hissed over the radio. "I've spotted enemy activity at what looks like a spaceport. I'm going to check it out."

_"Copy,"_ the human came back, and then everything went silent again. Nihlus slid off after the synthetics.

"Be advised, Shepard," Nihlus added. "Squad-strength hostile force at the dig site. Enemy appear to be synthetics. Possibly geth, though I'll need a body and a quarian to confirm."

_"Copy,"_ Shepard repeated a few seconds later. No questions, no concerns, nothing.

Nihlus considered the Commander's personal history report. Hero of Elysium. Butcher of Torfan. Survivor of Mindior. He had no idea what was going on in the Commander's mind right now as he fought through another ruined human colony, but he did know that the geth were going to regret it, just like the batarians had at Torfan.

* * *

The drones hadn't retreated. They'd set an ambush.

They were perhaps three hundred meters from the dig site when the two surviving drones reappeared, eezo cores flaring up less than forty meters away. Fire slashed toward the pair of Marines as the machines ripped up out of cover.

Kaidan and Shepard were expecting the attack, and hit cover at the same time. A second later reality twisted around them simultaneously. Electricity shot down their nerves, flaring up individual nodes of exotic material that set off the drones' sensors, warning them of the activation of element zero masses in both of the humans. Mass and gravity went from being objective fact to subjective concepts as two waves of sheer, raw force crashed into the drones.

One was blasted backward into a tree, the wood shattering as the metal crunched into it. The second took the blow square in its sensor array, which crumpled inward and smashed into its processor and element zero core. The drone toppled to the ground and was still.

The first drone tried to rise, but Shepard and Kaidan dropped with a flurry of rounds that tore its battered remains into a dozen pieces.

"All clear," Kaidan whispered, and Shepard nodded. He began to move forward, one eye watching the woods around them while the other was glued to his helmet's display.

"I'm hearing more gunfire," Kaidan added a few minutes later as they continued prowling through the woods, moving by fire and maneuver. "Up ahead. Definitely mass accelerators."

"Not Nihlus," Shepard added, and they pushed on. A few moments later, at the edges of their sensors' ranges, they picked up the signs of element zero cores – a lot of them.

Then the gunfire was closer. A lot closer: a flurry of rapid shots came from less than a hundred meters away. An untrained ear would have thought the gunfire to be a long, uncontrolled stream, but Shepard picked out the individual bursts being rapidly squeezed off. It was a steady yet speedy barrage of outgoing fire.

He rushed ahead through the trees, his IFF tracker identifying a friendly Systems Alliance Marine transponder just ahead, with several hostile eezo cores registering in close proximity.

The trees opened up to a charnel house.

The dig site was directly ahead, perhaps two hundred meters away, surrounded by collapsed stonework and other ruins. Dark, metallic forms with lithe bodies and gleaming, serpentine heads were visible among the stones, pumping out fire at a single form crouched behind another fallen stone block. The human Marine was clad in white armor and was relying on her shields to hold off incoming fire while squeezing off a steady stream of return fire. Three of the mechanical soldiers were already down.

Behind the synthetics were dozens of tall, narrow spikes, and impaled on each spike through the chest or stomach was a human body.

A couple of them were still moving.

Shepard came to a halt, mind whirling as he saw those bodies-

_-batarian flamers pulsing, burning the ones who resisted down to the bone-_

-and then he was unleashing the same rage he'd inflicted at Torfan.

Shepard was firing his rifle one-handed, stock at his shoulder, while his left rose and thrust forward. Dark energy swirled and shifted around him, and he temporarily rewrote the laws of physics. One of the synthetics – the "geth," Nihlus called them – was slammed backward against a stone wall so hard that the metal layers simply crumbled inward, shards of stone flying from the rock. It toppled limp and unresponsive.

Shepard shifted to another geth, hiding behind a fallen stone column, and reality twisted around it as he altered gravity in a half-dozen different directions. The geth recoiled, chunks of its armor ripping away from its body while others were crushed inward. Shepard maintained his focus with white-hot rage as he stalked forward, firing his Lancer one handed and putting round after round into the geth's compromised armor.

Within seconds, the mangled wreck of the geth's corpse fell to the dirt, in multiple pieces.

Kaidan smashed a third geth as he advanced, hammering its head with a biotic thrust so hard it was nearly ripped off, held on only by a couple of cables. The Marine behind the stone block took the opportunity to fully unload, firing a long stream of hypervelocity rounds that tore into another geth's torso, overpowering its shields and sending mechanical fluids and mangled machine parts out the exit wounds.

Another geth was emerging from behind cover, firing at the exposed Marine. Kaiden spotted it, shifting his aim, and he snapped his hand toward the geth. A flare of shaped light rose up around his left hand as his omni-tool activated, and Kaidan hit a couple of holographic keys on the device. His hand then flicked forward, and a mine roughly the size of his thumb flew out at the geth.

A pulse of jamming rippled through the air as the tiny mine hit, striking the geth - or more specifically, striking the kinetic barriers around the geth's body. The electronic countermeasures clashed with the kinetic barriers and the shield emitters, and resulted in a brief, flash of multicolored light and static as the shields were burned out. A second later, Kaidan's pistol barked twice, pumping a pair of slugs into the geth's chest and flashlight head, and it toppled backward.

The remaining geth disengaged, dropping behind cover with perfect synchronization and withdrawing behind the stone ruins.

They kept firing for about fifteen seconds, driving the geth back under a hail of bullets and ensuring fire superiority. Once the synthetics had retreated deeper into the ruins, their fire slackened off.

"Thanks for the help, sir," said the Marine. She was crouching behind the stone block, weapons till leveled at where the enemy had fled, the rifle steady in spite of the exhaustion in her voice. "Lucky you got here when you did."

"Welcome," Shepard said, hunting through his sights for the geth as he caught his own breath. He looked down at the twisted body of the synthetic he'd shredded with his biotics, and his anger kept bubbling up to the surface. He'd put more force than he'd intended into that attack, and the use of so much energy at once was leaving him drained, if only for a little while.

He checked the Marine's IFF tags. Ashley Williams, Gunnery Chief, 2nd Frontier Division, 212th Brigade, 2nd Battalion, A Company, Third Platoon, First Squad.

"Gunnery Chief, report," he said, slowing down gradually as the anger began to fade.

"Sir, ah," Williams began, a bit uncertain as she shifted gears away from combat. "My squad was patrolling the perimeter around the dig site when the attack came. We were back that way." She gestured toward the way Shepard and Kaidan had come from.

That explained the bodies.

"We tried to double back to the dig site to protect the scientists when they hit us," she continued, voice going a little distant. "They ambushed us. It was a coordinated attack, and they knew exactly where the dig site was and how we'd respond."

"Anyone left from your squad?" Shepard asked, checking the sensors for hostiles. The geth were keeping their distance, probably regrouping inside the ruins.

"No," Williams said, and he could hear the controlled pain in her voice. He understood.

"Do you know what happened to the beacon?" he asked, and she murmured something behind the visor of her helmet. He spared a glance at her, seeing dark brown eyes through the partially polarized faceplate.

"No," she replied. "It was there earlier today when we were heading out on patrol. Might still be there."

"Okay," Shepard said, nodding. "You're with us now. We're here to recover that beacon, understand?"

"Yes sir," she said, and he caught steel in her words. Yes, they were after that beacon, but they both knew they'd have to go through a lot of geth to recover it, and that was fine by both of them.

* * *

The monorail station was empty, save for a dozen or so of the strange metal spikes the geth had set up, each with an emaciated human corpse stuck upon it. He moved among the devices, noting they were free-standing machines that extended from mechanical bases. While the spikes were disturbing, he'd seen more sadistic and vicious things before, and had put those monsters down just as readily as he intended to eliminate these geth. He wasn't going to get emotional about it; after all, wrath and cold vengeance both killed equally well.

Of course, Nihlus thought, the Council was going to go feral over this development, especially with the humans pushing for membership. The geth openly attacking a member of the Citadel was an act of war. The Systems Alliance at the very least was going to go on a merry game of synthetic head-hunting. And it was going to put one hell of a dent in the synthetic rights movement.

The monorail station itself was piled with dozens of crates and boxes, doubtless for the scientists studying the dig site. The port sat at the base of a small hill, and was little more than a flat receiving platform overlooking the rail train itself. Nihlus moved past the impaled human bodies and up onto the platform.

He caught movement just up ahead, and raised his rifle. The turian slid forward across the platform, weapon ready, and slid around a group of boxes. He sighted the source of the motion, and then froze.

"Saren?" he asked, surprised.

The turian standing across from him on the platform was a looming, heavily armed figure with piercing blue eyes. He wore some form of custom-built heavy armor; on the right half of his body it looked like conventional turian-designed combat gear, while the left half seemed like a flowing, metallic sculpture, almost organic in its curves. Piercing blue eyes shone from inside a blank, unpainted face that shone a natural gray color.

"Nihlus," Saren Arterius rumbled, raising his head toward his fellow Spectre. His voice was a low, rumbling rasp. If turian voices were metallic, his was of cast iron: solid but rough and unpolished.

There were a couple of collapsed geth near where he stood, but Saren's weapons weren't drawn. The other Spectre was stalking around the bodies, but as Nihlus approached, he started walking toward him.

"What are you doing here?" Nihlus asked, curious. Saren reached up and clasped his friend's shoulder, the way he had for years before whenever they met on assignment.

"The Council thought you could use some help on this mission," Saren replied, and Nihlus nodded slightly. It made sense, considering the seriousness of the beacon's discovery. The Council would have deployed their top agent to bring in something of that magnitude. But they should have told him about the assignment of a second Spectre.

Still, Nihlus wasn't going to refuse the help. Saren had saved his life more than once, and the same applied in reverse.

"This is bad," Nihlus added, as Saren walked past him. "I didn't expect to see the geth here." He would have expected a Terminus raid, or batarians, but the geth had literally come out of nowhere. Behind Nihlus, Saren nodded.

"Don't worry," he said, voice calm, controlled, and cool as steel. "I've got everything under control."

Phasic ammunition was special type of mass accelerator modification that was designed to bypass shields. The rounds generated by the modified parts were specially charged and could go straight through kinetic barriers. The round lost a significant portion of its velocity and energy when it passed through the shield; between twenty to thirty percent was absorbed by the barriers.

Seventy percent of the velocity was still enough, especially when fired at point blank at the back of the head.

The phasic round hit Nihlus in the back of the head, right where the skull met the neck. Turian biology was similar enough to humans that the majority of the brain's major bodily functions were managed by the portions of the brain closest to the spinal column – and the phasic round lanced straight through the brain stem, ripping it apart and causing a catastrophic collapse of bodily functions.

Nihlus collapsed like a discarded puppet, dead before he'd known he'd been shot.

Saren Arterius lowered his pistol, looking down at the body at his feet, and for a moment, felt a tingle of regret, if only for a few seconds.

Only for a few seconds, though, as the geth that had collapsed on the platform clambered to their feet and got back to work. Saren stepped over Nihlus' body, pausing only to bend down and rip out the recording gear built into the suit, before moving to the monoral that connected to the next station, where the beacon was secured.

The geth were moving about, finishing their work with their usual efficiency. He watched them for a moment, noting their alien natures in their gait, their gestures, and their vocalizations.

Disgusting synthetics.

Disgusting, he chided himself, but _useful_. And Saren Arterius was nothing if not practical. He had a dead Spectre who was once his friend to prove that simple fact.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes: **_As you may have noticed, with this story I did a lot of massaging with the actual progression of events. I was bouncing around a lot of different ways to handle Eden Prime, if only because I was having a very hard time writing this segment of the game (it is, after all, the part of the game before you find Wrex and Garrus) and as pe rmy wont, when confronted with an aspect of the story that I don't like or cannot really work into a narrative, I tend to bypass it while still getting the information across (for example, dealing with the video transmission from Eden Prime and Ashley's unit). As you may also have noticed, I also cut out a lot of the dialogue relating to Ashley's meeting with Shepard, as well as played around with the introduction; as fairly cool as it was, the impalement scene made no sense from a narrative standpoint. This was done to improve the flow of the story and let everything make sense.

That said, a lot of extraneous material in Eden Prime will be cut out. As funny as it may be to punch out crazy scientists or shove shotguns in smugglers' faces for nifty pistols, a lot of that secondary stuff is simply not going to appear in this story.

Until next chapter . . . .


	4. Chapter III: Prophecy

_**Author's Note: There are a couple of small but major deviations from the game in this chapter. You'll see 'em when you get to 'em. Also, if you're familiar with my Firefly stuff, the last part of this chapter might ring a bell.  
**_

_**

* * *

**_

_**Chapter Three: Prophecy  
**_

It was a classic controlled retreat. They fell backward, covering one another in an ordered, coordinated fashion, the warbling buzzing of their communications sounding in time as they retreated. It wasn't clear whether the geth felt emotions, at least as a biological would, but it was clear that these geth were not routing, even under overwhelming fire superiority.

That did little to slow down the onslaught that was crashing into them through the Prothean ruins. Three human Marines charged through the collapsed stonework and tunneled rock, driving the geth before them.

Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko took the left side of the three-pointed assault, pistol barking. He fired in quick, two-to-three shot bursts. The hypervelocity rounds his pistol fired were about twice the size of the ones fired by the assault rifles his compatriots carried, and had correspondingly more power behind them.

However, Kaidan's primary weapons were the omni-tool on his left wrist and the nodes of element zero that were growing out of his nervous system. Geth rounds deflected off the biotic barrier glowing over his own suit's shields, and he gestured at one of the synthetics, sending a pulse of raw force that stove its head in. Another geth was firing at Shepard, and Kaidan programmed and tossed a tech-grenade with a flick of his wrist, which released another blast of ECM that disrupted the delicate machinery of the synthetic's targeting systems and weapons. The suddenly disarmed machine was gunned down by a flurry of automatic fire.

On the right side of the bounding fireteam was Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. She lacked the lieutenant's specialized electronic warfare gear or biotics, but made up for it in her skill with her rifle, keeping up a steady hail of accurate fire as she advanced and covered the other two squadmembers. She drilled through geth shields, putting out fire in five-to-seven-round bursts with a half-second delay between each barrage, and every burst put rounds on target, cutting down enemy barriers and dropping the geth behind them. The synthetics kept falling back, and any machine that exposed itself to fire through either maneuvering or emerging to provide cover was attracting her lethal attention.

In the middle was Shepard, leading the advance under Kaidan's constant ECM assault and biotic attacks, while Ashley kept the enemy suppressed with her steady and accurate fire. A geth emerged from cover, and he sent a scything biotic thrust at its weapon arm, sending spinning into a stone wall, where he pumped burst after burst into the synthetic until it stayed still. Another emerged to open fire on Kaidan, and he caught it inside a twisting field of discordant gravity, its body warping and tearing. Williams' fire tore it to pieces.

None of them were in any mood to show mercy to the synthetics. Alenko advanced with the cold, controlled fury of a disciplined warrior engaging a murderous enemy, while Williams hammered her enemy with the outrage of a soldier who'd witnessed the death and defiling of her fellow Marines.

Shepard, on the other hand, was simply _angry._ It was the same anger from Elysium, the same rage that had pushed him at Torfan, and that fury broke the geth standing before him, ripped them apart with flashes of biotic power and gunned them down under a flurry of hypervelocity rounds.

Lack of human emotion, in this case, may have worked against the geth.

The force defending the ruins counted a little more than a dozen synthetics, and they were driven back before finally being overrun at the center of the archeological dig. Shepard pounded the last of the geth into the stone at his feet with a biotic blast, while Ashley put rounds into each prone synthetic's head. She wasn't entirely sure if shooting them there killed them any faster, but it was still satisfying to put out the few sensor lights that still glowed.

"This is where intel says the beacon was found," Kaidan called as they finished up, and Shepard looked up, taking in their surroundings. They were in a low depression in the ruins, in a chamber that looked like it had once been a small, circular vault before collapsing.

It was also completely empty.

"It was right here," Ashley confirmed. "The scientists were afraid to move it anywhere, from what they told us. The geth must have taken it."

"Agreed," Shepard said, not finding any faults with that logic.

"What about Nihlus?" Kaidan asked. "Has he made any further contact?"

"No," Shepard said, shaking his head. "He said was checking out that spaceport on the other side of the ruins."

"Nihlus?" Ashley asked, and Shepard nodded.

"He's with us," he explained. "Turian Spectre." She paused, grunted, and nodded.

"Guess an alien Spectre can't make this FUBAR worse," she said. "The only way to get to the spaceport is through the monorail. That's on the other side of the ruins, past the trailers where the scientists were staying." She pointed up to the north side of the ruins. "That way."

Shepard took point, moving through the ruins and sweeping the area with his suit's sensors. Neither thermals nor element zero scanners returned any threats, but he didn't discount Ashley's warnings. The geth had ambushed her patrol when they'd been combat-ready, after all, and her Marines had been alerted by a planetary assault.

Beyond the ruins was a gently sloping hill, with a trail that led up it toward where the Ashley had indicated the scientists had been stationed. As they got closer, they picked out smoke rising over the area, and Shepard heard her murmur something.

"Third was up here, protecting the scientists," she said as they reached the top of the hill, and they came to a halt.

Several of the trailers had been blasted apart, and some badly-burned bodies were scattered about the hilltop. However, the most prominent feature were a line of a dozen more of the towering metal spikes, each tipped with an impaled corpse.

"What the hell are those spikes for?" Ashley breathed as they moved up onto the hill. "They're already dead."

"Demoralizing tactic," Kaidan responded. "We organics have done the same thing before."

"They're just sadistic," Ashley continued. "They want us to suffer."

Shepard didn't speak, instead moving forward below the spikes. That same cold yet vicious hate he'd been nursing throughout the entire mission was tightly winding inside of him. He didn't look up at the bodies.

"Commander," Kaidan suddenly whispered. "Up high!" He looked up, and brutal chill ran down his spine.

A couple of the bodies were still moving.

It took perhaps a second of consideration, before Shepard raised his rifle toward the moving bodies and fired a bullet through each of their heads. They were too far gone for any medical help to save them. He glanced back down at his fireteam, to see Kaidan looking grim, and behind her visor, barely contained rage on Ashley's features.

He opened his mouth to tell Williams to keep her anger under control, but then paused. He was just as furious, if for partially different reasons, but both of them were being set off by the horrific cruelty of the geth. He could berate her for letting her emotions get the better of her, but that would leave him a hypocrite.

"We'll make them pay," Shepard promised her, and she nodded.

A screech of metal on metal suddenly hammered the air, and they spun toward the source of the noise, in time to see several of the spikes begin to lower, followed by the remainder a couple moments later. The bodies jerked and twitched as they came down, but then Shepard realized that it wasn't entirely due to the motion of the devices.

One of the corpses raised its head as it descended, and glittering blue eyes glared back.

"What the hell-" Ashley was saying, rifle rising.

"Get back, get back!" Shepard ordered as the spikes kept descending. One lowered all they way to the bottom, and the corpse began to sit up, tearing itself off the device. Now that he could see it more clearly, he realized the dead body was threaded with glowing blue circuitry set into pallid gray flesh. Most of the clothing it wore was in tatters, and as it rose to its feet, the thing let out a horrific, strangled cry, part biological and part mechanical.

It took two steps toward them, and then two dozen hypervelocity rounds tore into the corpse. The first dozen or so deflected off a kinetic barrier, but the rest perforated the body, shredding its torso and tearing apart synthetic components. It toppled to the dirt.

"What are these things?" Ashley yelled as more pulled themselves off the spikes and started to lurch toward them.

"Don't let them get close," Shepard ordered, keeping his voice level as he poured a long stream of fire into the next corpse. The corpses were unarmed, but that meant nothing, as far as synthetics were concerned.

The body he was firing upon shuddered, sparks flying as his rounds tore through the electronics inside its body. It kept lurching towards them, undeterred. Fire from all three Marines finally put it on the ground, the circuitry dimming.

By then, most of the rest of the reanimated, synthetically-desecrated corpses were on the ground, hauling themselves off the spikes.

"Alenko, disrupt their shields. Williams, automatic fire!" Shepard's order was quick and concise. Kaidan quickly drew and tossed one of his shield-disruption grenades, while Ashley loaded another cylinder of coolant into her rifle. The grenade flashed and fizzled out the shields of a half-dozen of the husk-like corpses. A second later, Ashley's weapon roared to life, the Marine crouching and bracing the rifle as it effectively became a squad-support weapon. Scything rounds ripped into a group of the corpses as they stood, tearing dead flesh and electronics from their bodies.

Then, the remainder got their feet and started advancing past their first unsteady steps, and then bounded forward at frightening speeds, blue eyes glowering at the humans as they let out sudden, rasping shrieks. They hurled themselves across the distance so fast that even Shepard and Ashley's automatic fire didn't do much but drop one more of the husks.

One of them got close, to within half-a-dozen paces, and the gleaming blue machinery in its body suddenly flared up to eye-hurting glow. A pulse of electricity erupted from the corpse's body, a crashing wave of lightning and energy that smashed into Shepard's shields.

Pain lanced up through his body, and he recoiled, blinded by the flash. His arm pumped, element zero flared in his body, and the husk was slammed with enough force to send it spinning end-over-end backwards into its fellows, knocking another pair of them down. He poured additional fire into the rest of the creatures, while checking his shields, to see they had been pounded down to near-zero. A moment later, he felt warmth roll down his face from a nosebleed, doubtless generated by the whatever-it-was that the husk had just fired off at him.

Suddenly, he understood. The spikes were far more than just a terror tool; they were built to turn the corpses of organics into synthetic, reanimated bombs.

"Alenko, disrupt their weapons," Shepard growled, the hatred that he'd been trying to control welling back up. He reached out and flexed the biotic powers inside of him, and twisted reality around the mass of dessicated corpses. Flesh rippled from their bodies, and electronics were smashed and winked out. They kept charging through the field of warping forces, some of them limping or their arms and heads hanging loose and dead. Ashley's rifle was still firing, shredding the husks, but the coolant cylinder popped out, glowing red hot. She replaced it, cursing. Kaidan dropped another grenade in their midst, this time shorting out much of the glittering circuitry of the bodies.

They kept coming, bulling through the gunfire, and the Marines stood their ground, putting round after round into the bodies. Kaidan's body shone with twisting miasma of dark energy, and he hurled two more of the husks away. Ashley's rifle kept roaring, the weapon's thermal buildup at near-overheat levels as she worked to fend off the husks. Shepard was right beside her, his own weapon blazing, but he wasn't as skilled at heat management as she was – or maybe, he realized, that biotic assault had taken a whole lot more out of him than normal.

His rifle began to beep insistently, smoke issuing from the heat sinks, and he dropped the overheated weapon. The pistol at his side rose up, and he put three rounds into the closest husk. The battered creature toppled and went still.

By now, only three of the walking corpses were still standing, the rest having withered and collapsed under the furious assault of the trio of Marines. As Ashley was gunning down one of them, another bounded toward Shepard. Its electronics were dead and lightless, but that didn't slow the thing down, and its arms shot up, slugging the Commander across the face. He ducked and twisted, knowing his kinetic barriers wouldn't defend against attack that slow, and the thing's fist clipped the top of his helmet, spinning him around. He came up, flipping his sidearm over to grip it by the barrel, and smashed it into the husk's head. The thing's jaw twisted and deformed under the impact, and a backhand blow threw it off its feet. A burst from Ashley's rifle finished it.

The last of the husks was hovering in the air, held suspended by a mass effect field Kaidan had generated. He put two rounds into the thing's body, and it went limp and dim before the field released it to flop in the dirt.

Then, the hilltop was silent.

"Okay, what _the hell_ just happened?" Ashley hissed. "Those things were . . . _people_. Before they . . . ."

Shepard was silent, moving among the bodies. A couple still twitched, whatever electronics controlling them still driving them to fight. He recovered his rifle and put rounds into each corpse until it was still again.

"Guess we know what those spikes are for," Kaidan added, voice low and quiet. "Turning our own dead against us." Ashley didn't respond, and Shepard glanced back at her, to see the Marine's face locked up in anger behind her visor, and she kept staring at the dead husks littering the hilltop.

"Williams," he said, and she glanced up at him, away from the bodies. He gestured with his head. "I need you on point."

No sense in letting her dwell on it. They could let the horrors of the geth affect them after the mission was complete. Until then, there was a job to be done. After a couple seconds, the Gunnery Chief nodded and started moving again. Shepard was behind her, and Alenko brought up the rear, once more.

He checked his rifle's ammunition as he moved, and nodded. He still had several thousand rounds remaining, not counting the ammunition in his pistol and a plentiful supply of coolant for the rifle. They were good for-

_Pain._

It was a ripping sensation that tore through his brain, hammering him hard and sending him to his knees. Claws twisted into the skin around his temples, and a screeching, howling agony sent electrical cascades of agony up and down his spine. He snarled, holding back a scream at the pain, fighting to keep himself from collapsing. Behind him, he heard Kaidan falling to the ground, somehow making out the noise despite the banshee-wail slicing through his mind. Ahead of him, Williams was staggering, but staying upright, shaking her head and grunting at the pain.

Something was out there, something more terrible and brutal and mind-numbingly wrong than the geth, and it was slicing through his mind. His stomach churned, and Shepard bent forward, pulling open the front of his helmet and retched all over the ground.

* * *

The spaceport was quiet. Save for the rumble of distant gunfire, the only noise in the docking facility came from whispering breeze. It was almost peaceful.

The quiet didn't mean that there was no life. There were more than two dozen serpentine geth forms walking around the docking platform, most of them on patrol duty, with the remainder unpacking a long, cylindrical device. They looked up at Saren Arterius as he passed, but they made no other gestures toward him beyond noting his presence. Such was the way of the synthetics, and he paid them even less regard, until he reached one particular geth.

The only real distinguishing feature of this geth was its white armor, as opposed to the dark gray of most of the rest. The armor denoted what he'd termed a "shock trooper" – geth soldiers that seemed better-armed and armored than their lesser brethren. Saren didn't really understand the geth mindset and thus how they handled ranks and hierarchy, but he recognized the functions of a command structure. Saren thus knew which geth to go to in order to issue orders.

He stepped over a human corpse that the geth hadn't bothered to impale on their curious spikes, and eyed the machine.

"Prepare the charges," he barked, and the creature's single glowing eye stared back at him impassively. "Destroy the entire colony. Leave no evidence we were here."

A million humans would likely die in the nuclear fire that would result. One with a talent for understatement would say he had no real love for the human species, but even so the death of a million human beings weighed a bit on his conscience. He'd never hesitated to kill before to complete the Council's objectives, but even so, destroying an entire colony was an act of violence that overshadowed most of the necessary cruelties that had defined his life as a Spectre.

Of course, he reminded himself, it was necessary. The beacon, the spaceport, the civilian populace, and the military forces had records of everything that had happened. Nuclear fire, however, would wipe out all the evidence, leaving the exact cause of the invasion and the devastation that had resulted.

He may have been a Spectre and thus above the law of the Citadel, but there was no possibility the Council would overlook destroying a human colony. It was risky move, he knew, but it was necessary to acquire the beacon. Nihlus wouldn't have let him simply carry it away, and he doubted the humans on the planet would have simply allowed him to claim the beacon, Spectre status or no.

It was an unfortunate act of brutality, but necessary for the whole of the galaxy. At least they would die quickly, which was a better mercy that what they could expect if he failed.

He was necessarily cruel, Saren reminded himself. He wasn't a monster.

The beacon that had led to the entire invasion stood before him, looming overhead. It was a gray metal spire, thin and slender, the metal casing worked with delicacy and care. It gleamed with an aura of greenish-white power, flowing around the device's base, and from the tip of the spire there was a thin column of that green-white light shooting off into the sky. He didn't exactly understand how the technology worked; it was similar to the Citadel's comm-bouy relay network, though far more sophisticated.

He stepped close to the device, eyeing it, and then it awoke.

There was no other real word to describe the Prothean device's activation. Tendrils of force snaked out, a shaped mass effect field unlike anything he'd ever seen, more precise and more controlled than any technology the Citadel possessed. It grabbed him, lifting him up into the air, and he closed his eyes as it wove into his mind, snaking alien thoughts that reminded him of his last encounter with an asari, though vastly more powerful.

_Tell me,_ he thought. _Show me your secrets._

The beacon obliged, and the searing claws of the device's contents stabbed into his mind.

* * *

Captain David Anderson looked over the theater of war, while the Normandy criss-crossed ten kilometers out from the main center of the engagement, its main mass accelerator cannon providing aerial bombardment and the GARDIAN point-defense laser slicing into enemy positions. The main enemy force, a regiment-strength group with at least fifteen hundred troops and attached light armor, were attacking Marine positions around two of the major arcologies. They had the Marine defenders outnumbered at least two to one, but the Alliance soldiers were holding them back.

The enemy units were of limited size and strength, which indicated that it was intended as an incursion force, not a major assault force. They were attacking the Marine positions not to overrun them, but to keep them pinned down. Some anti-air fire had come at the Normandy, but her shields were up and deflected the incoming fire with no trouble; since the ship wasn't landing, it was more or less immune to small arms and light armor fire, especially at this height.

Even so, the enemy should have had some serious anti-air capability; the Alliance's military doctrine was well-known, and relied on lightning-fast strikes from reinforcing orbital assets to support ground operations. Any enemy attacking an Alliance world had to carry anti-air capability to fend off death from above, but he hadn't seen anything of the sort.

That wasn't what worried him, though. He could have taken the Normandy a lot lower to provide closer and more precise air cover, but what kept him from doing so was the immense specter he saw over the western side of the main spaceport near the archeological site. If they weren't under radio silence, he would have transmitted the information to Shepard's ground team, but as it was, the data would have done them little good. They likely already knew what he knew anyway.

It was black, formed of polished, gleaming metal, shaped like a squid or other marine cephalopod, with a long conical body leading and multiple stretching black tendrils reaching out below it. That glittering red lightning he'd seen before chased the tendrils, and he knew immediately that he was seeing the monstrous thing that had been visible in the distress signal.

And he understood why the enemy didn't have anti-air capability: this monstrous dreadnought doubtless had all the AAA they needed. That fact alone was enough to convince him to keep his distance and only provide long-range artillery support, at least until the fleet got here.

"Any word from Arcturus?" Anderson asked over the intercom that connected the CIC to the bridge.

"None, sir," Joker replied. "They've got ships on the way, but they're hours out."

"And they're receiving this data?" the Captain asked.

"Affirmative," Joker said. "I've got receiving confirmation from both the Eden Prime comm buoys and Arcturus. They see what we see."

"Good," Anderson said. "Weapons, shift fire eight hundred meters west, at map grid . . . ." he checked and rattled off the numbers. "Fire for effect."

As the forward cannons opened up, hurling hypervelocity shells at their targets, Anderson spared a thought that left him with a disturbing realization.

The fact that they had been able to communicate out through Eden Prime's local buoys meant that the enemy hadn't destroyed them prior to invading, which meant that either they didn't know about them, or they didn't care about them. The former was so unlikely as to be impossible, while the latter was deeply worrying.

If they weren't worried about outside communications, then that meant that either the enemy wasn't going to stick around long enough for the fleet to arrive to pound it senseless . . . or the enemy was not at all afraid of Alliance retaliation.

Anderson looked back at the display, showing the massive warship, and felt the deeply uncomfortable notion that it was watching him right back, through the video feeds.

* * *

It was like the screams of the damned. It was an all-encompassing pressure beating against his skull and weakening his knees, but coming from inside his head. As the seconds passed, though, the pain began to fade. Shepard struggled to look up at the thing he knew was causing this, to allow his helmet cameras to get a proper look at the form, and he recognized the red lightning that had heralded this assault.

"A ship," he breathed, as the massive dreadnought rose into the sky. It was at least two kilometers long, if the helmet's laser rangefinder wasn't lying to him about the distance.

"Look at the size of it," Ashley was saying, and he grunted his way back onto his feet, the pain ebbing away as the ship rose up into the sky. He glanced behind him, to see Kaidan standing up too, shaking his head. "What happened to you guys? You feel it too?"

"It felt like it was ripping apart my brain," Kaidan said, grimacing. Ashley nodded.

"Same here, but it was more like a migrane made by screaming voices," she said. "What the hell was that?"

"Whatever it was, it's gone," Shepard said, shaking his head. The pain was almost completely gone by now. Up in the sky overhead, the vast shape of the warship was shooting off into the sky, trailing blood-red exhaust from the "feelers". "Hurt like hell, though."

He raised his rifle, checking their surroundings. Nothing had changed, though they could still hear fighting in the distance. Either the enemy had more than one transport to the planet, or they'd just abandoned their troops to die on the surface. He supposed that for synthetics, that might have been perfectly acceptable.

Ashley seemed to have been affected less than either Shepard or Kaidan, though that was like being shot in the neck as opposed to being shot in the head. She stood watch for the few moments the two biotic soldiers needed to get their equilibrium back, and they resumed the march.

Within a couple of minutes they were moving again, and passed through the woods on the other side of the research camp. The Marine fireteam found themselves on a hill overlooking the local platform for the monorail. The monorail line itself was cut into the rock and dirt, and a flat platform of gray metal was set up beside it to receive incoming cargo. It was all prefabricated, likely set there for the science team. Ashley was scanning the cargo platform with her rifle's scope.

"Nothing alive down there, organic or synthetic," she said. "I see a few bodies though, all humans. Except . . . wait a second there's . . . a turian?"

Shepard blinked, raising his own weapon and checking the platform. There were a few human bodies scattered about, but there was also a dark-clad humanoid corpse, with the unmistakably thin and tall body structure of a turian.

"I think that's Nihlus," whispered Kaidan, who was checking the site with his helmet's built-in optics. Shepard scanned the area, and checked his suit's sensors. No sign of any active element zero cores, save for a couple from the monorail that matched commercial units, and one from the corpse itself that registered way past military-grade.

"Cover me, I'll check it," Shepard ordered and moved down the hill. He passed human bodies that had been left where they lay by the geth, and a couple of the large spikes that the sythnetics had yet to have impaled corpses on. He didn't understand why they hadn't mutilated these bodies like they had with the others; the synthetics' logic was baffling. He kept his ears and eyes alert for a threat that he expected to come bursting out of nowhere. The geth and their weapons had already proven to be brutally effective ambushers.

A few moments later, he was on the platform, crouched over Nihlus' body. The turian was definitely dead, with one prominent wound in the back of his head and half-a-dozen others all along his back, shredding and burning through his armor. Shepard signaled the all-clear, and the others moved down the hill, joining him as he examined the body.

"You know him?" Ashley asked, a rhetorical question if there ever was one, and Shepard nodded.

"He was a Spectre," he murmured. Something was wrong here.

What had killed Nihlus? The Spectre looked as if someone had ambushed him and shot him in the back, but a simple check of his suit's sensors told him that Nihlus' armor had barriers strong enough to take anything short of anti-tank round and still function. But there were no corpses, nor were there any bullet holes. There was no way a few geth infantry took him down without leaving any bodies behind, or at least signs of a struggle. This situation didn't add up.

"Alenko, check his suit, see if you can pull anything from it," Shepard ordered.

"On it," the Marine replied, activating his omni-tool. As he worked, Shepard turned to Ashley.

"Do you know what that monorail connects to?" he asked. She frowned for a moment in thought.

"The spaceport is attached to this rail line, a couple kilometers down," she said. "I think its where that dreadnought was docked. That's the closest station on the line I can think of. If they've got the beacon, that's where they took it"

"If they haven't already made off with it," Shepard added, mostly to himself.

"That turian, uh, Nihlus? He wasn't killed in combat, was he?" she asked. Shepard shook his head, but Kaidan beat him to the punch.

"He was executed," the Marine said, matter-of-factly. "Looks like phasic rounds, too." Both Shepard and Ashley turned to him, but he didn't look up, still working with his omnitool.

"How can you tell?" Ashley asked.

"Damage to his armor and to his head are inconsistent," Kaidan said. "I got some . . . rather up-close look at the kind of damage those geth weapons do to armor and human flesh. The pattern isn't the same as it is with normal mass accelerators, and especially with phasic rounds. Velocity is lower, and there's less penetration than standard ME, and there's no burning or cauterization like there is with geth weapons." He stood up.

"Downloaded everything I could, but most of the data was corrupted," he added. "Someone took the recording unit from his suit and then shot it up to make sure we couldn't get anything from it."

"How'd you get the data if they took the recording?" Ashley asked.

"Hacked his suit's sensors," Kaidan replied. "Turians like to be redundant. Got some data from the backup cores, but not sure how useful it'll be."

"So someone shot Nihlus in the back, and is trying to hide it," Shepard murmured, and Kaidan nodded. "And whoever it was is likely behind this attack."

"Or at least knows something about it," Ashley added. "And whoever they are, they had to be able to get close enough to this turian to shoot him like that."

"There might be clues at the spaceport," Shepard continued, and started across the platform. "We don't have time to waste. Move out."

* * *

"Track that ship!" Anderson barked as the massive dreadnought continued up into the sky. "Turn every sensor we've got on that thing! I want every scrap of data we can get!"

The crew responded quickly, and the holographic display lit up with rivers of incoming data regarding the vessel. It had been one thing to observe it on the ground, but now that it was airborne, he was getting mountains of data on its operations, thermal profile, and element zero core.

That last part chilled him to the bone. The vessel was lifting off with minimal use of thrusters, and that alone meant it had to have an element zero core that outclassed any other vessel in Citadel space. That wasn't even considering that a ship that size had landed on the planet in the first place.

What kind of technology were they dealing with?

"Make sure this intel gets back to Fifth Fleet Command," Anderson ordered. "Top priority."

As the alien warship continued to rise up out of the atmosphere, Anderson tracked it with his eyes on the display, and realized that whatever had come to Eden Prime, this assault was just the start.

* * *

The tram's controls were not designed with heavy security in mind, and Kaidan's omnitool had them unlocked in seconds, and had the Marine fireteam moving in a few more.

Unfortunately, the tram had not been designed for military assault either. It was built for cargo transportation, and had nothing but wide open, flat beds that provided very little in the way of cover. That was demonstrated emphatically as the monorail brought them into the station at the spaceport; the lead tram car hadn't even come to a full stop when geth weapons fire began slashing down at them from above.

Shepard and his team returned fire immediately. Either side of the monorail station was a loading platform several meters above the monorail itself, with heavy crates scattered about among several cranes. The equipment and supplies left ample cover for the geth troops, who were taking full advantage of it to rain fire down on the humans.

Cover on the tram was rhetorical. The only way off the monorail was a narrow ramp that led up to the loading platform to their right, and a pair of geth were hurrying down said ramp, rifles firing. Pulse rounds sizzled into the metal all around them, deflecting off shields and cocooning the Marines in transparent blue as they moved.

Shepard led the way with a single, fierce biotic thrust that hurled the lead geth back into its compatriot. Both of them were sent up the ramp and crashed into the railing at the top. As the Marines charged up the ramp, Ashley put two quick bursts into their chests, shoving her rifle inside their kinetic barriers to deliver the killing blows.

Shepard counted no less than a dozen geth on the platforms, judging by their element zero generators. They were concentrated on the left side, but a pair was crouched behind the crates on the right side of the station.

Kaidan dealt with that by dealing with the crates. He didn't have the raw power Shepard could put out, but when he sent a tight blast of altered gravity, the pulse of force hit the crates high and on one side, tipping it partway over and spinning it around. Both geth were suddenly exposed as their cover spun away, and both Shepard and Kaidan poured fire into the synthetics, battering down their shields and tearing pieces out of their bodies.

Behind them, Ashley was trading fire with the geth on the far side of the platform, and was managing to hold her own, especially considering she was outnumbered more than five to one. Geth fire sizzled in at her from multiple directions as she moved into and out of cover, but somehow she was keeping a half-dozen positions suppressed with a constant flurry of outgoing mass accelerator rounds.

Shepard scanned the platform quickly as Kaidan opened fire with his sidearm. A geth emerged from cover to run to better cover, but Kaidan spotted it. Both he and Ashley put fire onto the synthetic, battering down its shields. A burst from her rifle scythed the geth's legs out from under it and sent it sprawling.

The Commander fired only a few shots, mostly to keep the geth suppressed, and instead focused on the far side of the platform. Something about the geth's positioning wasn't right. They were fighting with the same calm ferocity that he'd seen earlier, and had fortified the far side of the platform well enough, but they weren't trying to flank or maneuver. There was a catwalk about twenty meters to his right that connected the two platforms, but the geth weren't using it to flank them. Instead, he saw, they had taken up positions to cover that catwalk.

Kinetic barriers and intense covering fire like the geth were putting out was enough to ensure at least a couple of them could have gotten across the platform to flank the humans. The geth weren't tactical incompetents, either, so they had to grasp the importance of maneuvering around the Marines. That meant . . . .

They weren't trying to win. They were just trying to keep the Marines from the other end of the platform, which meant that either they were holding out until rescue arrived, or more likely, they were holding out until something else happened.

Nihlus' dead body and the stolen recording equipment rose back up in Shepard's mind, and a chill ran through him.

"Williams, keep drawing their fire," Shepard ordered, and waved to Kaidan. "Alenko, you're with me."

"Sir," both Marines replied quickly. Shepard bounded up the platform toward the catwalk the geth had covered. He checked the location with his rifle's scope as the synthetics' shots sizzled overhead, slamming into his shield with raw kinetic force and blurring his vision with dancing blue swirls. On the far side, he saw two geth with white-painted exoskeletons, and a third built of dark metals. They were different from the gray-blue geth soldiers they'd been fighting thus far.

One of the white-armored geth turned toward him, raised its rifle, and there was a brilliant red flash of expanding light-

Shepard ducked just in time for the ball of charged particles to slam into the shield right in front of his helmet. The impact sent a dazzling flash of concussive force and exploding energy that hurled him back off his feet. Chunks of molten and crushed metal rained down from the top of the crate he'd been crouched behind. Someone – Kaidan, he guessed – grabbed him and dragged him back behind one of the cranes as the other geth put fire into his prone body's shields and the heavy crate.

"Commander, are you hurt?" Kaidan asked, firing a couple of shots at the geth to dissuade them. There was another shuddering impact on the far side of the crane as the geth fired another of those energy grenade launchers.

"No, I'll live," Shepard said, shaking his head and rising to his feet, feeling a bit dizzy. His helmet's visor was cracked, and the data displays were fuzzy and indistinct. With a grunt, Shepard cut off the displays and slid the visor back up inside the helmet so he could see clearly. He quickly set the displays to show on his forearm omnitool, and they warned that his shields were down and slowly recharging. With a couple taps on the holographic controls, he dumped the excess power in his suit's backup capacitors into the shields, bringing them back up to full.

"The geth have heavy weapons on that side of the platform," Kaidan said. "I count at least three. One of them has-"

Kaidan ducked. A second later, a bolt from the geth pulse weapons ripped past, though this one bored a hole clean through the crane and barely missed the Marine.

"Sniper," Shepard finished. "Some kind of anti-materiel rifle or something."

"Yeah," Kaidan answered. "They really don't want us on the other side of that platform."

"Take the sniper," Shepard ordered. "I'll tackle the two grenadiers."

"On your mark, sir," Kaidan replied, and the air around them tingled as the two biotics prepared to tell the laws of physics they were wrong. Shepard closed his eyes for a second, focusing and manipulating specific nerves to activate the element zero nodes across his body.

"Mark."

Both Marines rose from cover at once, and before the geth could fire their heavy weapons, the human biotics unleashed the dark energy coiling around them.

Shepard hit one of the geth grenadiers with a full-force biotic thrust that lifted it up and smashed it against the platform wall. White fluid splattered from the synthetic's body as it was crushed against the wall like an insect. Kaidan's biotic strike was different; instead of launching the enemy, his instead altered gravity around the geth sniper, lifting the alien synthetic up into the air amidst a cloud of swirling blue light. The alien flailed about helplessly as Kaidan directed the gravity field to raise the sniper high up into the air where it could easily be gunned down. Three carefully aimed pistol shots battered down the synthetic's shields, and two more left it limp and lifeless.

The last grenadier was pivoting to fire on Kaiden when Shepard poured two rifle burst into its shields. The kinetic barriers held, but the geth soldier ducked down behind cover, and made a quick gesture, causing a two meter-tall hexagonal plane of gleaming blue light to form in front of it, intercepting the next burst from the Commander's rifle. Shepard scowled, and then focused. He measured the distance between himself and the geth soldiers, and then loosed a second burst of biotic power. Reality warped around the crate the geth was crouched behind, ripping and rending metal like it was water, and twisting the alien machine's armor and body structure. The synthetic stumbled out from behind cover, body twisting and bending slowly in Shepard's grip, and then was launched sideways when Ashley put a five-round burst into its flank.

He glanced to her, and then back across the platform, and suddenly realized that the geth were no longer shooting. He spotted two more geth corpses lying on the far side of the platform, and though his sensor spicked up several more synthetics' active cores, they were hiding behind cover.

Gunnery Chief Williams had managed to suppress an enemy in good cover who had outnumbered her five to one, at least. Shepard suppressed the urge to comment on that kind of ferocious skill, and instead pointed to the far platform.

"Williams, cover that side. We'll try to flush the survivors out!" She acknowledged, and Kaidan and Shepard charged across the catwalk, weapons up. Within a few moments, they had sighted a geth in cover, and pout fire into its shields. It stood and sprayed pulse rounds at the Marines, but went down in seconds. They stepped onto the far platform, and Shepard spotted a second geth behind another crate, taking cover from Ashley's fire. Several more were scattered along that side of the platform, as soon as the Marines came into sight they rose and started firing. The closest scrambled for cover in an alcove set into the wall, but doing so exposed it to fire from Ashley, who pumped mass accelerator rounds into its flank, shredding the synthetic in a couple of seconds.

Pulse fire slammed into Shepard's shields, and he dropped behind one of the crates before the synthetics could do to him what he'd done to their comrades. Behind him, Kaidan was checking the geth corpses, securing the alcove they had been guarding.

Shepard began to lean out of cover to fire, but a torrent of pulse fire sliced toward him before he'd fired his first shot, gouging holes in his cover and ripping into his shields. He ducked back, half his barriers blown away, and drew a grenade from his belt. On the holographic display, he saw the geth bounding forward, and they were putting out an intense stream of gunfire as they charged across the platform.

The sudden shift in geth tactics had surprised him, but only for a second. They didn't have good cover, so the only way to keep the humans from hitting them while exposed was to put out enough fire to keep the Marines in cover. On the display, the geth were advancing very quickly, virtually running across the platform toward them. Shepard primed the disc-like grenade in his off-hand, braced himself, and then heard Kaidan's voice.

"Commander!" he yelled over the radio. "Nuke!"

That word made the Commander's heart jump into his throat, and he spun around from cover before the full implications of that word could hit him. He launched the grenade toward the geth – noting in a detached way that Williams had killed another as it had run across the platform – and then ducked back behind cover. He counted a single second and then detonated the grenade.

The roaring, sizzling snap of the detonation hadn't fully washed over him before he'd risen from cover, rifle shouldered. A geth rolled past, half its body a charred, molten mess, while another stumbled backward, the front of its body torn to pieces. Williams drilled it with a single burst that tore its head to shrapnel.

The last geth was right in front of him, shoving its pulse rifle into his face.

It fired a sudden three shot burst, the first punching into his shields, the second burning through them, and the last deflecting off his helmet and knocking his head backwards.

Shepard reacted purely out of reflex, sending a sudden pulse of biotic force at the synthetic. The blast was off-center, and hammered the geth's legs, hurling it to the ground. Shepard recovered, shaking his head, and looked down at the geth as it scrambled to its feet, not dazed at all by the impact, and raised its weapon.

Shepard reacted before it could fire and stepped forward, shoulder leading, and brought his rifle down across the geth's weapon, knocking it down and aside. He smashed into the slender synthetic as it rose, tossing the geth backward against the crate. He shot one arm up across the synthetic's "neck, pinning it in place, and glared into the glowing light of its "head".

For half a second, Shepard was back in the fires and corpses and smoke and screams of Mindoir.

He jammed his rifle into the synthetic's chest before it could recover, and he drilled a long burst into the thing's torso. The geth jerked and shuddered as mass accelerator rounds tore into its body. Shepard fired a second burst, still staring at the synthetic's "face", and the machine let out a long, screeching warble. The noise sharp and intense in the confined space, and rang inside Shepard's skull. The machine went limp a moment later, the light in its face dimming, and slumped to the ground.

The Commander shot the geth in the head two more times, once to be certain, and twice _because_.

As the adrenaline faded back to normal combat levels, Shepard brought himself back to the real world, a world where his squad's technical specialist had just yelled about there being a nuclear weapon in the vicinity.

"Alenko!" he yelled, starting to jog toward the alcove. "How much time do we-"

"It's disabled."

"-on that what?" Shepard asked, coming to a halt. Kaidan emerged from behind the alcove, his omnitool's display fading. Behind him, Shepard heard Ashley approaching, now that the last of the geth were dead.

"It's disarmed," the Marine said. "I just had to turn off the timer. No dramatic disarming scene, I'm afraid."

"That's . . . anticlimactic," Ashley said. "They didn't try to lock it or anything?"

"The geth apparently don't watch movies," Kaidan replied with a shrug. "Point is, it's safe now."

"Alenko, we're checking the rest of the platform," Shepard ordered. "Make sure the geth weren't being redundant with their nukes. Williams, you're on security." The marines nodded, and Shepard and Kaidan moved across the platform, sweeping inside all the remaining nooks and crannies. They set their suits' sensors to detect any radiation matching the signature from the nuclear device they'd disarmed, and after a few minutes confirmed the platform was clear. In fact, with the exception of the geth that they had killed, there was nobody else on the platform.

It wasn't until they passed through a short corridor leading to the docking facility the platform had been attached to that they encountered anything of note.

The docks were a wide, open-air platform for incoming cargo ships, equipped with mass cranes and docking clamps. The dock itself opened into what would have been a panoramic view of vast farmlands sandwiched between two of the blade-shaped arcologies, but instead revealed a landscape of glowing, molten rock, distorted by intense heat waves. It stretched out for over a square kilometer, a rippling series of orange and yellow and bright red rings of flattened, ridged stone.

"Holy shit," Ashley whispered. "It's like someone dropped a bomb . . . ."

"Exhaust," Kaidan replied. "I guess we know where that ship landed. Probably boiled the rock taking off."

"I've never seen a dreadnought with engines that powerful before," Ashley added, walking toward the railing. "How many people died when that thing took off?"

"No way to guess," Shepard replied, before realizing the question was likely rhetorical. He turned and scanned the platform, his sensors not picking up any geth element zero readings or mass effect fields. However, he was getting a strong electromagnetic reading from the platform itself, centered on a tall, slender object a few dozen meters away. Whatever it was, it had been unnoticed with the spectacle of the dreadnought's departure.

"Williams, is that it?" Shepard asked, walking toward the object. He wasn't getting a strong element zero reading off of it, but that could have simply meant its core was very efficient. It was surrounded by a shimmering, faintly visible field of pale green light, and a thin column of gray-green illumination shot out of the tall spire.

"Yeah, but . . . ." Her tone betrayed her confusion as she and Kaidan followed him. "It wasn't doing anything like that when they dug it up."

"Moving it might have activated it," Shepard said, feeling a bit of relief in knowing that the geth hadn't made off with the artifact. "Or maybe the geth turned it on." That was a disturbing notion: if the geth had activated the beacon, and then left it behind to probably be destroyed in the nuclear detonation, that meant they had to have gotten whatever data it possessed.

They'd won.

Shepard snarled, anger welling up inside of him, and turned away from the device. He activated his radio, and dialed into the Normandy's frequency. Ashley walked past him toward the beacon, while Kaidan began scanning the device with his omnitool's built-in sensors to get a good understanding of what they were dealing with.

"Normandy, this is Shepard," the Commander called. "Mission complete. We've got the beacon. Sending pickup coordinates now."

"_Acknowledged, Commander,"_ Anderson replied a moment later. _"Good work down there."_

"Yes sir," Shepard replied, trying to keep the bitterness out of his tone. As the channel closed, Kaidan walked over to him, while Ashley kept gawking at the beacon, circling around it.

"This tech is insane," Kaidan said. "It's amazingly well-preserved, but I think it's breaking down. Getting some fluctuating power readings. It's got an eezo core, but it looks unstable."

"I'm more worried about what the geth got off of it," Shepard said. "If they-"

He stopped when he felt a sudden tingle in his teeth, which made his eyes snap toward the beacon. A low, dull thrumming sound filled the air, and as he looked to the Prothean artifact, he saw Ashley freeze in place.

The faint energy field around the beacon suddenly sprung outward, enveloping Ashley. She recoiled, trying to pull backward, but there was a sudden flare from the beacon's element zero core as a mass effect field sprung into place, grabbing her and dragging her toward the device.

Shepard shoved Kaidan aside and dashed toward her without thinking. The field began to lift her up into the air. He expected her to shout for help, to cry out, to struggle, or something. Instead, Ashley simply shivered in place as the beacon lifted her into the air.

He leapt into the air, wrapping his arms around the Marine and tackling her down the ground. The mass effect field shifted to compensate for the sudden change in weight, but Shepard spun before it could do so, wrenching Ashley around and throwing her outside the area of effect.

The field snapped into place around him the second her mass was outside the area of effect, and he suddenly realized why Ashley hadn't spoken. The field was powerful, locking him in place, but it did more than that. Something slithered into his mind, freezing his whole body as it lifted him into the air. He heard Ashley yelling his name, and Kaidan telling her to stay back, but that only faintly registered over the roar of the beacon as it powered up.

He felt a spike of sheer, helpless terror shoot through him, and then . . . .

Something appeared in his brain.

_mechanical tendrils_

It wasn't a thought, or a sound or an image. It was something alien to him, a sensation he'd never experienced before, simply appearing in his mind, burying itself in there like a memory that had been part of him his whole life.

_boiling skies and evaporating oceans_

The thoughts seared through him, alien and monstrous, beating their way into his consciousness.

_**humanoid things** running, **arms raised**, howls of **agony**_

Pain spiked through his temples and down his spine. His teeth clenched as power rolled through his body, the roar of the beacon sounding like an avalanche in his ears.

_a **red hand of meta**l, extending from the sky_

The mass effect field crushed inward, making his skin tingle, pins and needles of pressure covering his body.

_ruined, burning **buildings**, corpses in the streets_

He tried screaming. It was an involuntary reaction to the pain clawing through his muscles and into his skull, but he couldn't open his mouth. He felt his body release involuntarily, voiding itself inside his suit, bile shooting up inside his mouth.

_**metal ****wea**ving through** flesh as pe**ople wail_ed, inhuma_n cries melti**ng into m**echan**ical sc**_**ree**_**ching**_

There was force, and then an explosion, and Shepard was thrown to the ground, muscles refusing to respond. He lay there, limp and immobile, as his name was screamed and vomit dribbled from his mouth and the beacon's shattered remains glowed, debris raining down around him.

Then, nothing.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes:**_ Yes, Shepard was channeling some Riverthink there._**  
**_

Some real massaging had to take place during this particular chapter, especially regarding getting the information regarding Saren. Since I opted to cut out the conversations with the locals to preserve flow (stopping to chat up Powell and Cole just wrecks the flow of the story from a written perspective) I had to get that information somehow, and the best way to do it was to show how suspicious Nihlus' death was. I also altered the number of nukes at the docking platform if only because the geth leaving four nuclear bombs at one point was of, well redundant, and disarming the nukes is neither hard nor particularly tense in-game - not to mention that while in the movies, nuclear weapons are difficult to disarm, they're a lot simpler in real-life. Hell, Kaidan probably disarmed the nuke in this chapter by popping open the casing and shoving omni-gel inside :P

A big challenge with this chapter was making the gunbattles interesting, but Mass Effect as a whole is a setting that allows for interesting and creative variation in battle scenes, when one factors in biotic powers, tech abilities, interchangable weapon and armor mods, etc. I'm also trying to factor in some elements from the previews of ME2, such as the improved biotic powers, the use of coolant magazines, etc.

But now that we're past Eden Prime and on to the Citadel, we'll be hitting the main meat of the story, which will open up a lot more chances for exploring the characters. And plus, in a couple of chapters, we'll meet Wrex and Garrus. Yay!

Until next chapter . . . .


	5. Chapter IV: Citadel

_**Chapter Four: Citadel**_

_They called it Torfan._

_The room rattled. The metal literally shivered beneath his boots as the heavy cannon roared are the far end of the launch bay. Mass accelerator rounds the size of his thumbnails ripped past, gouging holes in reinforced metal crates rated to survive the heat and impact of reentry. He could hear nothing but the constant roar of the ship's gun as it poured fire at them._

_Lieutenant Shepard moved out of cover as the cannon sprayed fire at the far side of the bay. On his helmet's display, he could see the signatures of half of his platoon, scattered across the bay, trying to fire on the escaping pirates as they retreated to their ships. Once they got onto the transport, the pirates could lift off and potentially escape._

_That wasn't going to happen. These pirates and slavers _had to die_._

_He dashed across the bay, diving behind a loading crane as the transport's cannon tracked toward him. Shepard checked the radar again, and saw another of the Marines in his platoon was down, life signs completely flat. _

_More than half the platoon was already dead. The tunnels of the pirate base under the surface of Torfan had been a killing ground._

_Shepard saw movement, and raised his rifle. Two batarian pirates ran for the ramp under the boxy, rectangular transport. On the underside of the craft was mounted a dome-shaped turret that was spitting mass accelerator fire from twin autocannons. Using the cover provided by the turret, they were running to safety._

_Shepard shouldered his rifle and opened up. Hypervelocity rounds ripped across the bay and slammed into one pirate's shields. The batarian ran faster, while the Marine kept hammering the alien with controlled bursts, blue light flashing around the pirate's armor. The shields went down a second later, and two rounds went through the batarian's legs. He – no, _it_, the pirate was an "it" and it didn't deserve a "he", dammit - dropped to the deck, skidding along, blood flying from the ruined limbs._

_The other pirate hesitated for a heartbeat. Shepard punished it for that mistake._

_Reality rewrote itself around the alien, and a field of altered gravity ripped the alien off the deck and flung it toward Shepard. He calmly raised his rifle and put three rapid bursts into the batarian, battering down the shield and then smashing through the alien's helmet._

_The wounded batarian tried to rise. Shepard focused and then unleashed a second pulse of biotic power. The alien writhed as gravity twisted and tore at its body, warping its armor and flesh into unnatural directions and shapes. The pirate screamed, its deep voice barely audible over the blasting cannon._

_Shepard could have put a bullet in its head, but this was better. The batarians needed to pay. _

_For Elysium. For Mindior._

_Two more batarians stood, and he started to fire, tracking them. He turned as they ran for cover. The transport's autocannon rotated toward him-_

_And split apart._

_The barrel of the cannon became something else, something wide and thick, multiple massive black tendrils reaching out, crimson lightning playing around them. The batarians toppled suddenly as the tendrils struck them, then sliced through their chests. The tentacles impaled them, and blue circuitry lanced through their skin, ripping out of their eyes and mouths._

_The transport was something else now, something huge and black and vast and endless. The gray stone walls seemed to melt away into orange and white, and something _more_ loomed in the chamber._

_He heard screaming, and saw the rest of his platoon fleeing, men and women hurling aside their weapons as the darkness and the tendrils reached out for them. They fell as the vast, shining metal rippled among them, bursting through chests and stomachs and sending flowers of blue and gray machinery erupting from their bodies._

_Someone was screaming. It took Shepard a moment to realize it was coming from his throat, and his rifle was roaring alongside his voice. He poured burst after burst into the metallic entity as it tore his squad apart._

_It turned to face him._

_No. Not again. He wasn't going to let his squad be murdered again._

_He kept firing. The rifle hammered away as the darkness brought its attention to bear on him, and then-_

* * *

Sharp, wracking pains lanced through his head as he struggled against the gauzy feeling. A mixture of memories flooding into him as he lay on the infirmary bed. Visions of dead faces, human and alien. Screams of people as bullets tore through them. Fire lancing across the sky, vast black shapes pouring from darkness and starlight.

He recognized places. The tunnels of Torfan. The spires of Elysium. The boxy pre-fab structures of Mindior. The impaled bodies of Eden Prime. Dead faces from all of these places, and something else, visions of aliens and people he had never seen before.

They thudded through his mind alongside the steady spikes of pain flashing through his skull, like someone was beating his head with a claw hammer in time to his heartbeat.

"Chakwas! Doctor Chakwas! I think he's waking up!"

That was a voice, agonizingly close, and it sent a fresh wave of pain with its own unique flavor roiling through him.

Shepard grunted, and despite the fact that every part of his body was demanding he stay horizontal with his eyes closed, he forced himself up into a sitting position, opening his eyes. Fresh pain rampaged through him as he looked around the dimly-lit medical bay of the _Normandy_.

"Easy, Commander," came Doctor Chakwas' sharp, British-accented voice. The _Normandy's_ medical officer put a hand on his shoulder and helped guide him up, swinging his legs off the bed. He took a couple of seconds to order his thoughts amid the pain.

"How do you feel, Commander?" asked Chakwas. The doctor was a willowy woman with graying hair, dressed in a white-gray lab coat. She hovered next to him, holding a datapad, the glowing lights of the device's display casting shadows over her features.

"Like the morning after shore leave," Shepard grunted, rubbing his head. That was a mistake; wherever his fingers touched pain flared up again. "What happened? The beacon?"

"The beacon exploded," came a familiar voice behind him, what sounded like Gunnery Chief Williams. Shepard looked back, to see a surprisingly young woman with short black hair pulled into a bun, tanned skin and soft features, with bright brown eyes. This was the first time he'd gotten a look at her face without a helmet on. Behind her stood Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko.

"Exploded?" he echoed, head still hurting too much to be terribly cogent.

"A system overload, maybe," Kaidan said. "It was old and damaged."

"It was my fault," Ashley said, looking away from him for a moment. "I got too close, and triggered some kind of security field."

"Not your fault," Shepard said quickly, his words slurred by pain. He recognized someone who was blaming themselves for something out of their control. "You had no way of knowing what would have happened."

She looked back up, and he caught a smile of appreciation on her face. Good enough.

"What happened afterward?" he asked. "How'd I get back on the Normandy?"

"Normandy came in for pickup, at the spaceport," Kaidan said. "Chief Williams and I dragged you back."

"Thanks. I appreciate it," Shepard said, and they nodded.

"You were unconscious for about sixteen hours," Chakwas cut in. "While you were out, I detected some unusual brain activity. Abnormal beta waves, signs usually associated with intense dreaming."

Dreaming. While he was unconscious, he had dreamed of Torfan. Only it wasn't just Torfan. There was something else mixed in with that breed of madness, something alien and different yet just as intense and _wrong._

"I saw . . . ." he began, pausing, puzzling through what it was he had seen. "I don't know what I saw. War. Destruction. Machines killing organics."

"Interesting," Chakwas said, in that tone that doctors got for cancers and unexpectedly amputated limbs. "I'll need to add this to my report-"

She went silent as the door to the infirmary hissed open, and in walked Captain Anderson. He looked tired and a hell of a lot older now than he had the previous day.

"Doctor," he said, nodding. "How's our XO holding up?"

"Aside from some unusual brain activity, all the readings look normal," she said. "I'd say he's perfectly fine."

"That's good to hear," Anderson replied. "I need to have a word with the Commander. In private."

"Aye-aye, skipper," Ashley said, giving him a sharp salute. Kaidan followed suit, and the two Marines and Doctor Chakwas excused themselves from the infirmary. As they left, Shepard finally got a moment to note their surroundings, or more specifically, the subtle tell-tales of an active frigate; the thrumming of working engines, the subtle vibrations of the mass effect core and thrusters at work, the constant background hum of electricity and static charge running through the ship. There was just enough of an altered timbre to the electrical workings to tell him that they were building up a steady static charge, which meant they were cruising at FTL speeds.

Pieces clicked together. They were moving away from Eden Prime, and probably had been for some time. Gunnery Chief Williams was still on board, which meant . . . .

"What's Chief Williams doing here?" Shepard asked as soon as the door slid shut.

"I had her transferred aboard," Anderson said. "Since we lost Jenkins, we'll need a replacement for our full compliment."

"That's some quick paperwork," Shepard said, to which Anderson shrugged.

"I can get what I want, if I push hard enough," he said, and Shepard nodded.

"She's a good soldier," he added, then paused, remembering the crewmember she was replacing. "I'm sorry about Jenkins. I don't like losing men under my command."

"I understand," Anderson said. "Between the Blitz, Torfan, and all the other combat you've been in, I know you've seen a lot of good men die. It never gets any easier."

"What happened on the ground after I went down?" Shepard asked.

"The geth were wiped out," Anderson replied. "Marine units on the ground managed to drive them back into a concentrated killzone. With that big dreadnought withdrawing, we were able to hit them with the main guns. Wasn't much left afterwards."

"Anything recovered from the beacon?"

"Nothing," the captain said, shaking his head. "Bits and pieces. Nothing salvageable." Shepard cursed quietly. A minute or so passed in silence as he tried to remember what he could about the beacon, but every thought regarding the vision he'd seen came back jumbled and confused, a mish-mash of images, scents, tastes, and flickers of some sensation he didn't think he was equipped to process.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" Shepard asked. Anderson frowned, considering his next words carefully.

"This won't look good, Shepard," Anderson said. "Not just the geth attack. Nihlus ended up dead, and the beacon was destroyed. The Council is going to want answers."

Shepard snarled. The last thing he wanted was a group of alien politicians second-guessing his decisions on the ground, especially when so much of the mission had been out of his control.

"The Council can kiss my ass," he growled. "I did nothing wrong. Hell, we were lucky to have survived. No one told us about the geth, or that dreadnought."

"I know," Anderson assured him. "I'll stand by you and your report. You're a damned hero in my book. But that's not why I'm here." He paused again, and Shepard let him consider his words.

"Lieutenant Alenko did some recovery on the data we got from Nihlus' suit," he said, and activated his omnitool. Glowing light played over the captain's forearm. "Most of it was damaged and corrupted, but we got some sound files. The last thing we got from him before life sign failure was this."

A scratchy recording, obscured with static, came over the omnitool's speaker.

" _. . . not . . .sion, Saren . . . ."_

It sounded like Nihlus, but wasn't perfectly clear. A second voice came over the speaker, harsh and grating.

" _. . . Council th . . . .one."_

" _. . .pect the geth."_

" _. . . contro . . . ."_

The recording cut off in squeal of static.

"Who was that second voice?" Shepard asked. "Sounded like Nihlus called him Saren."

"That would be Saren Arterius," Anderson said, and his voice boiled with anger and venom. "He's a Council Spectre."

"You know him," Shepard said the obvious.

"Turian Spectre, one of the best," Anderson said. "And he's apparently behind the attack on Eden Prime."

"A Spectre working with the geth?" Shepard asked. He felt a sudden flush of anger, now that he had a name to pin blame on, however flimsy the evidence was. "That doesn't make any sense."

"None of this does, but I know Saren," Anderson replied. "He has a personal hatred against humans. Something to do with the First Contact War; I'm fairly certain he lost family during the occupation. And now he apparently has an army of geth at his command, and he's got the knowledge from that Prothean beacon. Every single colony we have is at risk."

Shepard frowned, considering what he'd seen on Eden Prime. He pushed the anger back, the images of slaughtered colonists, and focused on the facts. If Saren had wanted to wipe out the colonists, he would have bombarded the planet. The fact that his dreadnought departed the moment they had the beacon and had left a nuclear weapon at the spaceport was telling.

And that dreadnought . . . it was something different from anything he'd ever seen before. It didn't remind him of the geth, either. Something about its shape and design and general _feel_ was divergent from their technology, and the way it had slammed its way into his mind . . . .

And the geth themselves. They were synthetics who had been created by the quarians three hundred years ago, who had rebelled against their masters and driven them into exile. The geth's territory was located behind a massive, opaque nebula known as the Perseus Veil, and the synthetics had not emerged for the last three centuries. How had Saren gotten the geth on his side?

"I don't think Saren attacked Eden Prime because he hates humans," Shepard said. "There's something else going on here."

"At least we managed to save the colony," Anderson admitted, apparently not liking the idea of Saren not conforming to his suspicions. "Even if we lost the beacon. Were you able to get anything from it? Any clues?"

Shepard leaned back on the bed, thinking and trying to make sense of the information the beacon had given him. It was all chaotic images and concepts, mixture of words and symbols that made no sense to him. He couldn't make sense of what he could see clearly, but . . . .

"I saw . . . a vision of some kind," Shepard finally spoke. "Machines, killing organics." Like the geth had killed the quarians, or like those spikes had transformed the population of Eden Prime. "I can't make sense of any of it."

"I see," Anderson replied. "Put what you can make out into your report. We'll be forwarding it to both Arcturus and the Council. They'll want to know about it, and we're already requesting they open up an investigation into Saren's activities. In the meantime, get some rest, Commander."

Shepard shook his head, and stood.

"I've been horizontal for sixteen hours," he replied. "I'll stand for a bit. Need to eat something anyway."

* * *

The mess was automated, and located right outside the sleeping pods. With the _Normandy_ being a frigate, there wasn't much room for a large table, but everyone else was at their duty stations, leaving Shepard alone to eat. He wolfed down the rations, which were unique in their blandness. That was to be expected when dining on a military vessel, but at least the food was filling, and more importantly, it replaced the calories he'd lost fighting. Flexing his biotic muscles took a lot of energy.

It didn't help that he'd spent a while burning off his anger in the exercise area of the hold. What had happened on Eden Prime still pissed him off, and every time he remembered a geth or thought of those husks or visualized a slain burned Marine or civilian body, he got angrier. By the time he'd finished working the rage out, he was shaking with fatigue and the need to eat something.

It was for the best, though. Shepard knew if he didn't deal with that burning rage, he might lash out at someone else. For an ordinary person, that was bad enough, but for a biotic, it could be lethal, and Shepard knew he had enough raw power as a biotic that he could easily kill someone in a fit of rage. It didn't help that he was feeling the same old, bitter hatred that he'd harbored for the batarians who attacked Mindior, only now it had a new target: Saren.

At first, each repetition in the exercise area had seen his anger grow. The hatred that had pushed him to do what had been done on Torfan – _ordering men into autocannon fire just to kill more slavers, burning and rending flesh with his biotics just to see the alien pirates suffer and die_ – was now after a new target. Shepard knew Saren needed to pay for what he'd done. That anger and hate pushed him through the exercises, through the burning and pain, until he'd finally grown too tired, his legs and arms so shaky that he could barely stand.

Shepard pounded the rage into exhaustion, and walked away rational and clear-headed again.

He'd finished writing up his report, and was reviewing it on his datapad while eating. He was halfway through the meal when Gunnery Chief Williams sat down across from him, a tray of her own processed rations in hand.

"Hey, Commander," she said. "You alright?"

"Good as I can be," he replied, looking up from the pad.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"No, nothing major. Just proofing my report on Eden Prime." He studied her features for a moment. "How are you holding up?"

Ashley frowned, considering her words before she replied.

"It feels weird," she said. "I don't spend much time on ships, just doing planetside garrison duty. And I got brought on because Corporal Jenkins was killed. I'm glad to be on board, but I feel a little guilty about it. If he hadn't died, I wouldn't be here."

"Don't feel guilty, Williams," Shepard said. "We're all volunteers, unlike the turians. We all knew that we could die when we signed onto the military. Jenkins knew the risks."

"I know, but I don't like it," she admitted, poking at her food with her fork. "I lost my whole unit. They were good people, and they were wiped out, and then I just get whisked up by Command and assigned to his ship. It's disorienting."

"I understand, Chief," he replied. "We went through a lot down there on Eden Prime, but you pulled through pretty well. I'm glad to have you on this ship."

"Thanks," she said, managing a slight smile. They ate in silence for a few moments, and Shepard waited for her to continue talking. It happened, and Shepard knew when soldiers and sailors needed to air out their problems. He wasn't a psych specialist, but he'd dealt with plenty of personal issues before. He could wait for her to continue.

"Sir," she finally said, "If you don't mind me asking . . . I know about what you did on Torfan, and Elysium. How did you deal with the losses?"

Shepard was silent for a moment, mulling it over. For a heartbeat, he saw the faces on Torfan again, but he pushed them away.

"It's as I said," he replied quietly. "When we put on the uniform, we accept the risks associated with them. While I was fighting, there wasn't time to mourn them, but afterwards, I took the time to remember them." He poked at his food for a moment. "There's a memorial on Torfan now. I go there every year, to pay my respects."

"You did what was necessary," she said. "I can understand that, but I can get why that eats at you, too."

"You've seen combat before," Shepard remarked. It wasn't a question; he'd seen the calm and controlled way Ashley had gunned down geth after geth, and how she'd maintained fire superiority despite being outnumbered a dozen to one. There was no way that could have been anything but veteran work.

"Yeah, a few times," she replied, her tone quiet and subdued. "Colony garrison work, fighting pirates or slavers. Nothing like Eden Prime, though. I've seen good people die, but never my whole unit. And you never get used to the sight of dead civilians."

"You held up well enough under fire," Shepard said. "That's what matters."

"Yeah, I know," she said quickly. "I just . . . you're right, I can fight well enough, but after everything is done . . . ." She stopped and shook her head. "I'm sorry, sir, you don't need me to unload my problems on you."

"I'm the XO, it's my job," he replied. A few seconds passed.

"So . . . we're heading for the Citadel, according to Lieutenant Alenko," she said. It was a transparent attempt to change the subject, but Shepard didn't argue it. He had heard that they were changing course, taking the ship to the heart of Citadel Space, but he didn't know why.

"Never been there myself," he replied.

"Me neither," she said. "Wonder why they're bringing us there?"

"We have the data recovered from Nihlus' suit," he said. "They probably just want to deliver that in person. Maybe the Council will want to ask us some questions, since we were on the ground and encountered the geth and the beacon firsthand."

Ashley frowned, and looked back down to her food. She ate in silence, and Shepard didn't need to be a genius to tell that the idea made her uncomfortable.

"How long do you think it will take us to get there?" she asked. "I don't know much about long-range cruises like this one."

"We'll have to cruise between a couple of linked relays to get there," Shepard said, running over the route they'd have to take in his head. "Between the cruise time to the relays and discharge stopovers, we're looking at a week."

"Time enough to get ready," she mused. "Thanks, Commander. For the talk."

"Anytime, Williams."

* * *

The cruise to the Citadel itself went by a bit faster than Shepard expected, mostly because Joker really did live up to the credentials he claimed to have, and Pressly was a shrewd navigator. They shaved twenty-two hours off the cruising time by pushing the _Normandy_ past safety regulations, stretching out the time between drive discharge stopovers on planets. The _Normandy's_ prototype Tantalus drive put out a lot of static buildup, but she was a small ship and thus could expend her excess static electricity a lot faster than a cruiser or dreadnought.

The _Normandy's _personnel were all affected by Jenkins' death, which was only natural for a frigate crew. There were less than thirty personnel total on board, so the loss of any crewman left a gap in the daily routine, and while Chief Williams filled in as best she could, her presence reminded everyone of Jenkins' death. Anderson had expected this, and had assigned her to maintaining the ship's armory and Mako transport, which kept her on the lower deck. Both he and Shepard agreed that this was best for the crew until they got over Jenkins' passing.

The "afternoon" of the sixth day saw Shepard walking up toward the bridge, and out the narrow forward viewports, he could see the oncoming specter of a mass relay.

"Good timing, Commander," Joker called as he approached. "'Bout to head through the relay connecting to the Serpent Nebula. See those taxpayer dollars at work."

The _Normandy_ slid in toward the relay while some of the off-duty crew gathered behind Shepard, eager for a look. The relay powered up as the _Normandy_ communicated with it, and the frigate shuddered as it transitioned through the mass-free corridor.

An eyeblink later, they were surrounded by a thick, lavender-white curtain of gas on all sides. The sensors on Joker's display, which had previously shown the width and breadth of space in all directions, were suddenly cut short, unable to penetrate the pale purple nebula gases on all sides. The Serpent Nebula was famed for the extreme difficulty in navigating through it, which was why the only secure access points into the region were via the multitude of mass relays connecting to this one section of space.

Joker adjusted the _Normandy's_ course, and as they moved through the nebula, the reason for so many of these relays leading to one small section of difficult space became apparent:

The Citadel.

The station loomed in the exact center of the nebula, and first-time visitors were always apparent because of the way they stared in awe. At one end of the vast space station was a wide ring, housing the upper-class and governmental facilities. The rest of the station connected to the ring, in the form of five oblong "arms," concave and shallow-curving habitat sections, which stretched out like the fingers of a hand grasping at something out of sight. The outer surfaces of the arms were made of a shiny white metal, a thick layer of armor plating that was impervious to any known weapons technology. The interior of the arms were covered with a sprawling cityscape, housing millions of sapients. Moving about the space station were thousands of ships, both civilian transports and military vessels, constantly coming and going in a river of flaring drive engines.

The Citadel space-station was the governmental and commercial center of Council space, a massive and spectacular relic of the extinct Protheans and an awe-inspiring testament to just how advanced they had been. The technology and resources needed to build and maintain the Citadel was well beyond any species on or associated with the Council.

"Whoa," Kaidan said, so eloquently. "Look at the size of those Ward arms. How do they keep all that mass from flying out into space?"

"Prothean technology," Shepard said, impressed - like everyone else - at his first sight of the Citadel. "They built it to last."

"There!" Ashley called, on the other side of the bridge, pointing at an immense shape moving across the Citadel's "interior", inside the area between the ward arms. "That dreadnought! Look at the size of that ship!"

"The _Destiny Ascension_," Kaidan mused. It was a massive white-painted vessel, consisting of a huge, ovid center with a gaping launch bay for hundreds of fighters. Four wings extended from the port, starboard, top, and bottom sections of the ship, and though they looked thin and narrow on the massive dreadnought, they were several times longer and wider than the entire _Normandy_. The entire ship was smooth and elegant, in direct contrast to the narrow, dagger-shaped cruisers flying in formation with it. The _Ascension_ was an asari-built warship, while the cruisers were turian, and showed their differing design philosophies.

Of course, as elegant as the _Ascension_ was, she was still a ship that could pound continents flat if she chose to.

"Well, size isn't all that matters," Joker muttered.

"Why so touchy, Joker?" Ashley asked. She'd gotten along well with the pilot, despite the two being three decks apart most of the time.

"Just saying, you need firepower, too," Joker clarified.

"Well, that thing's main gun could rip through the barriers of any ship in the Alliance fleet," Ashley said, awed.

"Good thing it's on our side," Kaidan added.

The _Ascension_ was a kilometer from top to bottom and from starboard to port, and almost as long from aft to bow, but the vast dreadnought was just a speck against the Citadel's arms. The _Normandy_ flew past the dreadnought, and Joker spoke with Citadel Security's port authority and traffic control, who gave them a vector and a berth. They descended toward one of the ports on the Ward arms, and as they got closer, Shepard could make out individual buildings. The flowing circuitry of lights between the buildings resolved themselves into individual airborne cars and transports, and the glittering lights on the various buildings and streets turned out to be mosaics of advertising, both holographic and billboard.

The port facility was built into one of the Ward arms, and it consisted of a tall tower set into one of the Citadel Security buildings that loomed up over the Wards, intermixed with the other skyscrapers on the arms. The _Normandy_ settled into the docking bay, which was manned by Alliance and human Citadel Security personnel. The frigate came to a halt inside the bay, and a line of docking clamps descended, circular pads that used mass effect fields and magnets to lock the hull into place.

"Don't waste time admiring the view," Captain Anderson said from behind them, and the crew dispersed a bit at his presence. He gestured toward Shepard with a follow-me movement of his hand. "Commander Shepard, Lieutenant Alenko, Gunnery Chief Williams, come with me."

They followed him down the crew corridor, and Anderson waited until they'd passed the row of monitors, some still manned.

"I need you to suit up," the captain said quietly, "and get inoculated, then meet me at the airlock. Ambassador Udina wants Shepard to be at the hearing, but I want the entire ground team."

"Armor, sir?" Shepard asked, and Anderson nodded.

"Udina's orders," he explained. "Apparently, he wants to make it clear who and what you are to anyone watching." Anderson frowned. "And to tell the truth, I agree. If Saren is behind this, and I'm dead confident he is, he might try to take a shot at anyone who can testify against him."

"A Spectre, killing a witness?" Ashley asked, her tone a bit incredulous.

"It's happened before, and Saren is definitely the sort to silence someone who could talk," the captain explained. "Watch your back once we get off the ship, Commander."

"Understood, sir," Shepard replied.

* * *

The inner ring that connected the Ward arms together was known as the Presidium, which was where the government facilities for the Council were housed, along with the upscale corporate and financial offices of a number of the top ten thousand or so interstellar companies. Normally, to transition there from the docks in the Ward arms, one needed to pass through a Citadel Security customs checkpoint, then move through the Ward to either an elevator or a transport before reaching the Presidium.

However, a shuttle had arrived on the platform opposite the Normandy's berth, and whisked Captain Anderson and his select crewmembers directly to the Presidium via another secured docking bay directly on the ring. As they got off and stepped onto the Presidium, Shepard, Kaidan, and Ashley got their first look at where the upper crust of the Council societies spent most of their time.

"They've got their own lake," Ashley summed it up. "On a space station. They have their _own lake_."

White, green, and blue were the dominant colors of the Presidium. White walls, floors, and ceiling panels, green plants growing in every nook, cranny, transition, and divider, and blue waters running in lakes, ponds, and streams. The Presidium ring's gravity was oriented toward the outer wall, while the inner wall served as the ceiling. Either side of the Presidium's "floor" was lined with myriad offices, plazas, upscale stores, and government facilities built into the walls, while the center of the "floor" was dominated by the various waters and streams. Long walkways spanned the gap between the two ends of the Presidium. The inner wall of the ring had a wide band of simulated blue sky with white clouds passing "overhead."

The Presidium wasn't crowded, exactly, but it wasn't empty, either. There was a mixture of peoples everywhere, of nearly every species in Citadel Space. Shepard saw turians in civilian clothes, which resembled their armor in many ways, and the feminine, blue-skinned asari in long gowns. There were the spindly salarians with their huge, dark eyes and narrow heads, the hulking, slow-moving quadrupedal forms of elcor, and he spotted more than a few rotund, waist-high volus, obvious in their environment suits and mole-like atmosphere masks.

Most of the people in the Presidium were government officials, military officers, corporate agents, and other people either affluent or politically important enough to be up there. The majority of the Citadel's population lived in the Wards "below," which were a lot more crowded and a lot less peaceful. Citadel Security tightly controlled access to the Presidium; ordinary citizens could _apparently_ access the Presidium, but the businesses were so prohibitively expensive, the regulations so intensive, and the police presence so strong that most didn't stay long.

It kept the unsavory elements out of the Presidium, which let the upper crust of the Citadel carry on their business. Peaceful, but exclusive, which was apparently how the Council liked to run things.

The various species which were part of the Citadel had embassies established within sight of the base of the Council Tower. The embassies themselves were little more than a collection of offices in a small complex that served as the meeting grounds for dignitaries for each species. Shepard had seen embassies for individual countries on Earth that had been larger than the entire embassy complex on the Citadel. He followed Anderson as he led them down a series of hallways and up a couple shallow ramps that took them to the Alliance Embassy.

The Alliance's embassy was more like an open-air café than a place for high-level political discussions. It consisted of a couple of small, enclosed offices, a wide-open balcony that looked out over the lake that dominated this sector of the Presidium, and a line of holographic projectors on one wall. Today, they displayed a trio of humanoid forms constructed of orange-tinted light.

The leftmost was a turian, clad in an elegantly elaborate suit, with white markings across a face that looked like it should have been brown. To the right was a salarian, wearing what looked like a black and red cloak, complete with a hood that covered the horns that rose out the top of his slender head. Only the salarian's thin mouth, small breathing nostrils, and enormous eyes were visible. In the center was an asari, the elaborate facial markings on her face identifying her as a Matriarch. Like all others of her kind, she resembled a human female with a sextet of backwards-sweeping cartilage horns in place of hair, and her skin was most likely a pale blue, judging by the hue of the hologram.

These three unassuming individuals happened to be the Citadel Council - the three most powerful sapients in the galaxy.

"This is an outrage!" snarled the human standing in front of the projected figures. To Shepard, Ambassador Donnel Udina was an olive-skinned man with graying hair and a face marked by stress wrinkles – a career politician. He wore a cream-colored suit, and was jabbing a finger viciously at the Council holograms. "The Council would have stepped in if the geth attacked a turian colony!"

"_The turians do not found colonies on the borders of the Terminus Systems,_ Ambassador_,"_ replied the salarian. His voice was high-pitched and nasal, though not exactly grating. If anything, it sounded reasonable and patient, but the subtle emphasis on the alien's last word had the very clear message of "Calm down and know your place, and whom you are speaking to."

"_The geth attack _is_ a matter of concern, and we are mobilizing patrols to protect colonies in potentially threatened regions,"_ added the asari Councilor in that same patient tone. _"We have approved aid shipments to Eden Prime, and the Council fleets are on full alert for a possible attack."_

"That's not good enough," the human ambassador replied, though his tone was indeed a bit calmer. "A Council fleet could secure the entire region, keep the geth from attacking any more of our colonies."

"_Or it could trigger a war with the Terminus Systems,"_ replied the turian Councilor. _"We will not risk open war in the Traverse for a few dozen human colonies."_

Shepard was out of the holographic projector's focus, so he could focus on the turian in particular. Councilor Velarn was his name, and he was one of the more outspoken critics of both the Alliance and humanity in general. He was the one who was most firmly opposed to the inclusion of the Alliance in the Council, and thus the biggest obstacle.

"What about Saren?" demanded Udina. "You can't just ignore a rogue Spectre! I demand action!"

"_You don't get to make demands of the Council,"_ Velarn snarled back.

"_Citadel Security is investigating your claims regarding Saren,"_ the asari Councilor cut in, in the same patient, admonishing tone. _"If there is any proof regarding your claims of an alliance between Saren and the geth, it will be addressed in the hearing later today."_

There was a tone of finality to her words, and Udina visibly relented. A few seconds later, the displays went dark as the Council cut their connection. Udina closed his eyes, shook his head, and then turned toward Anderson, Shepard, and their crew.

"Captain," he said, audibly frustrated. "I see you brought half your crew with you."

"Just the ground team from Eden Prime," Anderson replied. "I case you had any questions."

"I've read the mission reports," Udina replied, tone dismissive. "I assume they're accurate?" Anderson nodded. "Hm. The Council is not happy about this." He directed that last sentence Shepard's way, with a lot of blame – both personal and apparently projected from the Council – headed for the Commander.

He repeated the same thing he'd told Anderson a week ago.

"The Council can kiss my ass," Shepard responded. He didn't like to put up with either bullshit or the political blame game, and Udina's attempt to foist responsibility on him before he'd even said a word was both. "We did nothing wrong. This was Saren and the geth's fault."

"Settle down, Commander," Udina ordered. "You've already done enough to jeopardize your candidacy for the Spectres."

"Tell me again why I should care," Shepard replied, blunt and straightforward. "Maybe next time you should check with me first before volunteering me as some political trophy."

Udina glared back, but didn't contest the issue. Instead he turned to Anderson.

"Let's hope the Council is willing to accept Shepard's testimony, and the evidence we recovered," he said, and then gestured toward the door leading to one of the side offices. "Captain, come with me. We need to go over the evidence and our strategy regarding the hearing."

Udina walked away without another word, and Anderson exhaled.

"That's why I hate politicians," Ashley muttered under her breath.

"No argument there," Anderson replied quietly, once Udina was out of earshot. "Commander, you're free for the next few hours, until we're ready for the hearing. Meet us in the Council Chambers at 1800. Udina will make sure we've got clearance to enter."

"Thanks Captain," Shepard said, and for a moment, he felt that spike of pure _hatred_ again. "We'll be there."

And Shepard was going to make Saren _burn_ for Eden Prime.

* * *

The daily cycle on the Wards was one of constant activity. Each person operated on their own personal schedule, which meant that business was always booming no matter where one went; many stores were open all day. Many, but not all, and a lot of the smaller outlets and stores that were owned by individuals operated on the business owner's personal schedule.

Such was the case for Doctor Chloe Michel's clinic. Doctor Michel herself operated on the usual human cycle, which meant that for about twelve hours a day the clinic was open, and Michel and her small staff handled anyone who came in and needed treatment. Today, though, the hours of operation had passed, and her staff and patients were gone, leaving the Doctor in her office behind the receptionist's counter, dealing with paperwork.

Dr. Michel's clinic was free, and since she was experienced in treating most species, she saw a lot of traffic among the lower-income populace. The free clinic gave her some useful tax breaks, and helped her public relations, but her real work came from her ability to supply medical equipment to those who needed them. Her clinic was located very close to Citadel Security's main station on this ward, and a lot of people in need of medical supplies passed through the area. Many mercenaries, bounty hunters, criminals, and more legitimate types had to pass through the station to get anywhere on this Ward, and one of the first things they saw upon exiting the station was her clinic, which advertised a wide range of custom medical modifications for armor and supplies for people who needed military-grade medical gear.

The person who entered Doctor Michel's clinic after-hours was neither of a species she normally treated nor was a person who looked like they'd have the money to buy her mods. She looked up from her desk as the door slid open to see a slender, female figure stumble through the door.

That was particularly impressive, considering her door had been _locked_ for the evening.

She was wearing an environment suit of dark blue, and wore some kind of cloth shroud and hood over it, with intricately woven patterns on the cloth. The helmet's visor was wide and smooth and nearly opaque, but Michel could see a pair of eyes glowing faintly behind the helmet. There was a glowing light that was located about where her mouth would be, and the three-fingered hands, two-toed boots, and avian legs betrayed that she was definitely not human.

She was a quarian.

Michel wasn't about to demand who the quarian was or why she'd broken into her office, because she could see the blood running down the alien's leg, from two serious wounds in her side. Her right hand held a pistol, while her left glowed with the light of an active omnitool.

"Doctor?" the quarian asked, her thickly-accented voice filtered through the suit's speaker.

"Oh, my," Doctor Michel said as she rushed to the obviously wounded quarian. She helped the woman stand, and hurriedly closed and locked her door again, noting that the quarian hadn't completely disabled the lock, instead just briefly bypassing it, a process far more complicated. Michel guided the stumbling woman to a table behind the main counter. "This way. Sit down here. What were you shot with?"

Michel lived in the Wards. She'd dealt with enough gunshot victims to know the pertinent questions. She saw penetration but no exit wounds, which meant the bullets were still inside. Medigel would stop the worst of the bleeding, but she'd need a probe to extract the fragments from the hypervelocity rounds. No burning around the entry wounds, so no incendiaries, and the wound showed no signs of frostbite, so no cryo ammunition.

"Proton rounds," the quarian muttered, holding her arm up so Doctor Michel could look at the wound. "Breached my shields."

That was good news. No metal fragments would be embedded in her, as the damage had come from concussive force and electrical burns. This could be treated with medigel.

"I need to open up the suit around the injury," Michel said quickly.

"My suit is sealed around the wound site," the quarian replied. "It's safe."

The quarians had a nearly nonexistent immune system, which happened when one's entire people lived aboard sterile ships. That was why they wore the suits. This quarian didn't seem to be much of a stranger to trouble, if she'd already sealed her suit around the injury. The pistol lying on the table beside her, in easy reach, confirmed that as well.

It was hard for Michel to tell through the speaker, but it sounded like whoever this quarian was, she was young – too young.

"Who shot you?" she asked, to which the quarian was silent.

"I need to know who shot you," the doctor said as she worked on the wound. "I'm required to report any gunshot wounds by law."

"But you won't," the quarian said, looking down at the Doctor. "You don't report all the gunshot wounds you treat. That's what I've heard."

Michel didn't reply for a few moments. It was true, she didn't. Enrique Fist, the local crime baron in this section of the Ward, paid her good money to work on retainer for his men, and they sometimes came in after hours with all manner of injuries she should have been reporting to C-Sec.

"I need help," the quarian added, and her voice carried a whisper of fear. "I need someplace safe to go. Not C-Sec."

"Why not the police?" Michel asked.

"Because the men who shot me were wearing C-Sec uniforms," the quarian replied.

Michel frowned. Corruption in C-Sec was nothing new, but killers for hire wearing police uniforms? Fist, at least, would know how to hide her, but he would need money.

"I do know someone," Michel said as she cleaned the injury. "He's not cheap, though."

"I have money," the quarian replied. "I will pay you. And whoever helps me."

"What's your name?" Michel asked after a few seconds.

"Tali," the quarian whispered. "Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

* * *

-

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**This chapter, along with the next couple, have probably been the hardest for me to write. One of the biggest challenges of this story is getting the sheer amount of detail and backstory to fit into a narrative without breaking flow. Another is handling the dialogue, althogh my methodology for that is to not go for an exact replica of the dialogue used in-game, but rather to use the dialogue as a guideline to help me work out how a conversation is supposed to go. I'll use certain specific lines fom a given dialogue, including the most memorable or iconic.

The other big challenge, at least for this segment of the narrative, is working in the Citadel investigation. There's a lot of talking and movement, but working that into a flowing narrative of investigation, intrigue, and action is a challenge that requires a lot of improvisation and shuffling of material around.

Next chapter, we get to see a few more familiar and well-liked faces. :D

Until next chapter....


	6. Chapter V: Obstruction

_**Chapter Five: Obstruction**_

The Presidium was normally a place of calm and quiet, a landscape of relative peace, with the low murmurs of voices intermixed with babbling waters, the hum of overhead transport craft, and the calls of birds and other tree-dwelling animals suited to surviving in an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere.

That was why so much attention was being drawn to the two turians walking along one of the stream-spanning bridges, one yelling loudly while the other was doing his best to keep his subordinate quiet.

"This is insane!" snarled the first turian, slightly slimmer and taller than his superior. He wore lightweight blue and black armor, the standard working uniform for a Citadel Security officer. His face was pale and unpainted, save for a couple of blue slashes across his mandibles. "The investigation has only been open for five days, and you're pulling me off?"

"Council orders, Garrus," replied the second turian. Unlike the first, he was clad in civilian clothes, the turian equivalent of a working suit. And also unlike his subordinate, his face was painted a dark red-brown, with a mixture of white and pale cyan markings on his face.

"They told me to put an end to it," Executor Pallin continued, his voice was low and growling. It suited the head of Citadel Security. "They've already reached their decision."

"This isn't an investigation, it's a farce!" Garrus Vakarian replied. His voice was higher and sharper than Pallin's, but still had the metallic grate that was common to turian vocals. "I need more time."

"Garrus," Pallin said, stopping and glaring at the detective in front of him. "This is an investigation into a Council Spectre." His voice softened, as much as a turian voice could. "Do you really think _any_ investigation regarding a Spectre would be anything but a token gesture?"

"Pallin," Garrus growled, "You of all people should be jumping at the chance to bring down a Spectre." Executor Pallin's hatred of the Council's secret agents was no secret. The fact that he'd taken personal interest in this investigation was proof enough.

"If I thought there was any chance, I would," Pallin responded, mandibles widening a bit to show anger. "But you and I have both reviewed the evidence the Alliance brought in from Eden Prime. What evidence there is."

"Give me more time and I can get more solid proof," Garrus said. "Something more substantial than a scratchy recording. You know I can, you wouldn't have asked me to take this investigation otherwise."

"Didn't you hear me, Vakarian?" Pallin hissed. His use of Garrus' surname was a warning. "The Council is calling the hearing in an hour. This investigation hasn't turned up anything useful, and as much as I hate it, Saren's probably going to walk."

"We haven't even performed a proper autopsy on Nihlus' corpse," Garrus said. "I have contacts that can dig up dirt on Saren. There has to be more proof left on Eden Prime that the humans could uncover. We can't let this go! Stall them."

"Stall the _Council_?" Pallin muttered, shaking his head. "Vakarian, your willingness to bend proper procedure has been an asset before, but you're asking too much. This investigation is over, and if you keep pushing it I may be forced to suspend you. Understand?"

Garrus stared back at his boss for a few moments, before turning sharply and walking away.

"Understood, sir," Garrus growled, almost inaudible.

* * *

"Y'know, art doesn't do much for me," Ashley Williams mused. "But that relay statue? I like it."

The three human Marines had been wandering the Presidium while waiting for the appropriate time for the hearing, and had found themselves lingering outside the Citadel Tower. A large lake was outside the tower's plaza entry, and about twenty meters out into the lake was a pedestal, upon which sat the Relay Monument, a vertical statue about a dozen meters high that was a scale-model of a mass relay. It looked and sounded just like a real relay, complete with the spinning . . . whatever it was in the middle that on a real relay would generate the transit corridors.

Shepard, Ashley, and Kaidan had browsed in some of the shops on their way over to the Tower, but everywhere sold either items they weren't interested in, or were prohibitively expensive. They stood out, being the only people on the Presidium wandering around in full armor. A C-Sec officer had asked for their identification at one point, but once they were confirmed as Alliance Marines, they'd been left alone.

"Anyone feel that?" Kaidan asked, frowning. "A tingling, in the back of my teeth."

"Like when we're around an active mass effect field?" Shepard asked, and Kaidan nodded. Shepard had felt it too, an electrical tingle in the back of his eyes and inside his biotic port.

"I'm not feeling anything," Ashley remarked. "Um. Guess it must be a biotic thing, right?"

"Apparently," Shepard said.

"Like what happened on Eden Prime, when that dreadnought took off," Kaidan remarked. "The Commander and I got hit pretty hard, but you didn't do much more than stumble."

"Hurt like hell, though," Ashley admitted. "Hey LT, how much time to do we have?"

Kaidan checked his omnitool's chronometer.

"About thirty minutes before we're due."

"Close enough," Shepard said. "Let's go."

He turned to start down the walkway toward the Tower plaza, but came to a halt as something skittered past him. Ashley muttered something in surprise as a squat, green, insect-like creature moved by them without even acknowledging their presence. It had four legs attached to a bulbous thorax, atop which sat a torso-like structure that another four arm-like limbs extended from. A small head with large black eyes topped the thing's body, and with the exception of a backpack-like object it wore, it had no clothes or objects.

"What the hell was that?" Ashley muttered, and then frowned. "Wait, was that a keeper?"

"Looks like," Kaidan said. "They're supposed to be everywhere on the station."

Shepard and his group followed after the Citadel's silent caretaker. The species was native to the Citadel, and were some kind of bio-mechanical drones whose sole purpose seemed to be to maintain the station. At least, that was the theory; the keepers didn't communicate with anyone, never explained what they were doing, and apparently lived inside the Citadel's inaccessible core.

Attempts to get inside the core or study the keepers uniformly failed. The former was impossibly well-armored, to the point that any device that could breach it would likely destroy the Citadel along with it. The latter were somehow impervious to any form of scanning, apparently the keepers were designed to immediately self-destruct if someone tried to take samples from or capture one. The most commonly accepted theory was that this was a Prothean security measure to keep someone from tampering with the Citadel.

The keeper stopped at a console at the edge of the plaza outside the tower's elevator, and activated a holographic display. Shepard paused next to it, noting that the alien's arms flowed around and through the holographic controls with impressive speed. Some scientists theorized that the keepers were intelligent but not sapient, like biological virtual intelligence programs.

"Technically," a voice came in from a few meters away, "you're standing too close to that keeper and it could be considered interference."

Shepard looked up, to see a turian approaching, wearing C-Sec uniform armor. The alien's face was bare and unpainted, save for a couple of blue slashes along his mandibles, and he wore a holographic visor on the left side of his face, curving down around his skull and over his eye, shrouding it with a transparent blue display. The turian's tone wasn't serous or authoritative. In fact, he seemed almost amused.

"Interfering with the keepers is illegal?" Shepard asked.

"There are some conspiracy theorists who think the keepers are up to something," replied the turian officer. "They've tried to disrupt keeper operations, despite the fact that they've been doing the same thing for two thousand years without deviating. Just to be on the safe side, it's illegal to interfere with their duties."

Shepard nodded, and took a step back.

"Relax," the officer said, mandibles widening in a turian smile. "Just talking. Unless you're beating the keepers over the head with a lead pipe or something equally stupid, we're not going to bother you about it. You're Commander Shepard, right? _SSV Normandy_?"

"Yeah, that's me," Shepard replied, nodding.

"Garrus Vakarian, Citadel Security," the turian replied. "I was the officer assigned to investigate Saren Arterius."

That surprised Shepard for a moment. He wasn't expecting to meet the investigators face to face, let alone that one of them would be a turian.

"Wait, 'was'?" Kaidan asked. "Isn't the investigation still ongoing?"

Shepard couldn't read turians very well, but he thought he saw a tightening in the cartilage around Garrus' eyes.

"Past tense," the turian said quietly. "Apparently, the Council is finished with its investigation, and doesn't want me harassing one of their Spectres."

"That's not a good sign," Ashley muttered. "I'm not a cop, but five days isn't enough time to do a proper investigation. An audio file isn't going to be enough to convict Saren, is it?"

"No," Shepard whispered. He looked back to Garrus. "Did you find anything else?"

"A couple of leads," Garrus said, voice sharp and bitter. "But nothing concrete. I barely had time to start the investigation before they shut me down. I'm not giving this up, though. Saren is dirty. Like you humans say, I can feel it in my gut."

"If you find anything, let us know," Shepard said, and Garrus nodded.

"You have a comms number I can reach you at?" the turian asked. Shepard nodded, and they exchanged communications numbers. "Thanks. If anything pans out, I'll contact you."

"Hearing's about to start," Kaidan added.

"We've still got fifteen minutes," Ashley said. Garrus glanced over this shoulder toward the base of the Tower, which rose up through the roof of the Presidium's ring.

"You're taking the elevators . . . you're going to need more than that, trust me."

"Right," Shepard said. "Thanks, Garrus."

"Good luck, Shepard," the turian added. "Maybe the Council will listen to you."

* * *

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya jerked her head up at the sound of voices in the waiting room. It was two hours after she'd stumbled into the clinic, and she'd spent most of them checking her suit's status, reviewing the data she'd picked up, or checking the leftover gear she was carrying. She had a pistol with armor-piercing mods and a couple of stun grenades. Her omnitool had manufactured a half-dozen ECM grenades in the meantime, replenishing the stock she'd lost getting here.

This was not where she'd expected her Pilgrimage to take her.

She'd tried contacting Citadel Security when she realized the importance of the information she'd uncovered, and had been told to meet with an officer named Garrus Vakarian. Only when she'd come to meet with him, instead she'd been met by several men in C-Sec uniforms.

Tali may have only recently departed from the Migrant Fleet, but she wasn't stupid. A quarian on Pilgrimage had to be cautious. A couple of pertinent questions had been all it took to warn her of the ambush, and a nasty gunfight had erupted through the alleys in the Wards before she'd fled to Doctor Michel's.

She stepped into the waiting area, pistol in hand. Two men in nondescript outfits were talking with Michel; a human and a salarian. As soon as Tali appeared, they looked up, hands going to their coats.

Tali already had her pistol up and leveled. A glance at her helmet's displays showed these men had kinetic barriers, low-level shields probably projected by small undercover units under their clothes. Tali primed the launcher on her omnitool that would fire an ECM grenade to disrupt and overload their shields.

"Please, no!" Michel insisted, stepping between them. "Miss Rayya, these are the men my contact has sent to help you."

Tali lowered her pistol, nodding.

"Thank you, Doctor," she said. "I apologize. I can't be too careful."

"That's understandable," the salarian said. "If you'll come with us, we'll take you to see Fist."

"Do you trust them, Doctor Michel?" Tali asked as she walked around the counter. The doctor nodded, but Tali caught something in her features – not a denial, but definitely a warning. It was hard to tell; aside from the fact that Michel was a different species, Tali didn't have a lot of experience dealing with facial expressions. That came with being a quarian and spending most of one's life in an environment suit.

"Fist is reliable," Michel said, "Especially when money is involved."

Subtext: if Fist is being paid more than you can offer, he'll breach your suit and leave you to asphyxiate in a heartbeat.

No one said this was going to be easy. But if the news she was hearing was right, someone had to know. The quarians had suffered from war with the geth before, and Tali knew that the Citadel might suffer the same if they didn't get her information.

"Very well, then," Tali said, turning to the criminals. "Let's go."

* * *

Shepard, Kaidan, and Ashley stood in silence as the elevator went up the side of the tower to the top level, where the Council was meeting. Outside, they could see the ward arms spreading away below; the Tower itself actually extended into space for nearly a kilometer.

"The Council's not going to ask me any questions, are they?" Ashley asked, a bit of anxiety creeping into her voice.

"They shouldn't," Kaidan replied. "They've read our reports."

"Nervous, Chief?" Shepard asked.

"Slightly," she admitted. "Asking me to kill a few hundred geth, no problem. Asking me to stand in front of a bunch of alien politicians and answer questions, that's another thing altogether."

"Copy that, Chief," Kaidan mused.

They waited in silence for a few more minutes.

"How long is this going to take?" Ashley grumbled as the elevator continued to rise.

* * *

Citadel Security kept a close eye on all incoming traffic. Different types of immigrants and cargo raised different flags. Common species and cargo rarely drew more than a few minutes at a customs desk. Rarer species, questionable cargo, and individuals that warranted a closer examination – such as mercenaries, bounty hunters, and the like - usually took longer, raising a slightly higher alert. Certain specific individuals, such as asari Matriarchs and high-ranking military and government officials got their own escort and personal notifications.

The individual stepping off the elevator out of C-Sec customs had gotten the "two hours in a customs booth getting a friendly talk about weapons regulations and we've-got-our-eye-on-you" sort of welcome.

But now that said annoyance was done, it was time to get down to business.

He'd gotten the call just an hour ago, while he'd been waiting in the customs booth. He didn't ask how they'd known he was there, after all, but he did warn them that, being in customs, he'd have to wait until they were somewhere more secure to talk business.

Now, though, he could find some privacy, which only took a few minutes. The Wards may have been crowded, but there were plenty of alleyways where one could have a quiet conversation with no fear of being overheard. Sure, there were alleys and corridors that one didn't want to walk down, but the new arrival was not the sort that _any_ mugger would dare try to steal from.

He halted in one corridor, tinted dark purple and blue by neon lights on either end of the hallway. No one else was in the corridor save a keeper working on a wall panel, and it didn't count. He activated his omnitool, and dialed the number he'd been given.

"It's me," he grunted. "Customs is finished. What did you want?"

"_A situation has come up in the last hour,"_ the voice on the other end replied. It might have been a turian, he couldn't tell. Too much garble intended to mask voices. _"A person under our employ has made a grave mistake."_

"Someone betrayed the Shadow Broker," mused the new arrival, in a tone usually reserved for those who willingly stuck their heads into plasma beams. "Who is it?"

"_Information is being forwarded now."_

"Hm. Interesting. Dead or educated?"

"_Educated, then dead, preferably."_

"Collateral?"

"_Limited."_

"That'll cost more."

"_Already included in your fee."_

"I noticed."

"_Will you take the job?"_

He grunted.

"Naturally," he replied. "Give me a couple of days."

"_Thank you, Battlemaster Urdnot."_

"Whatever."

He closed the link and turned his head left and right, popping his bones. It sounded like someone was breaking a turian's leg with a claw hammer.

"This should be fun," mused Urdnot Wrex as he started out of the alley. He hadn't killed _anyone_ on the Citadel in a couple of years. Might as well change that. The krogan Battlemaster shouldered his way into the crowd, which parted to give the massive, armored, humpbacked, and excessively-well-armed alien plenty of room.

* * *

"Wow, Chief," Kaidan said. "You were right, this is taking a while."

"All this advanced technology," Ashley griped, "and we still have slow-as-hell elevators."

"I think we're late," Shepard added.

"Music's nice, though," Kaidan added. "Maybe we can go see that elcor version of Hamlet they were talking about on the news."

"Might be faster if we just walk," Shepard mused.

A minute later, the elevator came to a halt, and the doors slid open, letting in a rush of warm air, tinged with the scent of alien flowers – sweet, but different than any earthly plants.

The corridor leading from the elevator opened up into a massive, vaulted chamber that seemed less like a government meeting room and more like an atrium mixed with a cathedral. The entire chamber was suffused with a mixture of white a purple light, sot and dimmer than it had been on the presidium. The purple light came from the far walls, into which was set a massive window that looked out into the Serpent Nebula.

The Council Chamber consisted of four tiers; first was the narrow hallway they stood in, which opened into a wide space around a large, bubbling fountain. The trio of humans walked up the next set of stairs, which opened into a large plaza. The center of the plaza was mostly open, with rock gardens mixed with pink-blossomed trees running along the center of the tier. Either side featured shadowed balconies below low ceilings that were held up by pillars. There were plenty of side alcoves and benches scattered around for quiet meetings.

Shepard noticed it at the same time Ashley did.

"I bet all these stairs aren't for show," she said. "They make for good defensive positions if this place is ever attacked."

He nodded. The narrow corridor leading out of the elevator and the open area around the fountain made for excellent killing fields for anyone on the stairs. On the second tier, the open plaza afforded little cover, and shooters behind the pillars and on the third and fourth tiers could lock any intruders in a cross-fire. Shepard wouldn't want to assault this chamber if he could avoid it.

The third tier was a few narrow walkways with benches; the only thing notable was that the railings were thick, solid, and afforded excellent cover. As they got closer, Shepard could hear voices coming down from the fourth tier; the Council Chamber's acoustics were apparently built so that it would be hard to hear what was being discussed on the upper levels from the lower ones.

Captain Anderson was waiting for them on the third tier, and waved Shepard over.

"Come on," he said. "They've already started."

"Elevators slowed us down," Shepard explained. Anderson nodded in understanding. As they reached the fourth tier, Shepard could hear the asari Councilor speaking, her voice loud and clear.

The fourth tier was where the real work happened. The Council stood across a wide gap in the floor, directly before the vast windows looking out into the Serpent Nebula. Between the Council and those addressing them was a pit that held another rock garden; a narrow walkway ran out to a platform directly over the pit, where those who would speak to the Council stood. On either side of the chamber were several balconies where spectators – usually dignitaries, diplomats, and government officials - could watch the proceedings.

In the flesh, the Council members appeared as Shepard expected from their holograms. What Shepard didn't expect was the hologram hanging up to his left, beside one of the balconies. It displayed a tall, lean turian with no markings on his face, wearing a suit of combat armor. The right side of the armor looked conventional, but the left half of the torso was a tangle of tubes and wires, running into a flowing, almost organic section of arm plating.

Shepard recognized the turian's face from the photos he'd studied on the way here.

Saren Arterius.

Shepard kept his eyes locked on the turian he was certain was behind Eden Prime, and kept his anger on a tight leash.

"The geth attack _is_ a matter of some concern," the asari Councilor declared, "but we have found no reliable evidence connecting Saren to this incident."

"What about the recording from Nihlus' armor?" demanded Udina, who stood on the platform in the middle of the room. "That proves that Saren was present on Eden Prime, right before Nihlus was killed!"

"We have reviewed this recording," Councilor Valarn replied, tone dismissive. "It was damaged and corrupted."

"Saren's voice can be heard," Udina replied. "And Nihlus mentioned him by name!"

"We have run voice-match analysis on the audio file," the salarian Councilor replied. "We have only a 34.3752% voice-print match to Saren's. That is hardly admissible."

"And we have no indication under what conditions Nihlus may have mentioned Saren's name," Velarn added. "I'm certain Commander Shepard's name was uttered more than once while he was down there, yet no one is accusing _him_ of conspiracy to commit war crimes."

"What of Nihlus' body?" Udina said.

"What _about_ the body?" Velarn asked. Udina glanced back behind him and nodded to Anderson.

"My crew personally observed the corpse," the Captain said, standing beside Udina. "They confirmed that the weaponry used to kill Nihlus was not geth design and bore no similarities to geth weaponry. I'm certain the Council has reviewed the technical data recovered regarding the differences between geth weapons and mass accelerators. There's no doubt that Nihlus was killed with mass accelerator weaponry, likely phasic ammunition."

"_That is hardly proof, Anderson,"_ Saren spoke up suddenly, glaring at Shepard. His voice was harsh, like cast iron, and derisive, as if this entire hearing was a waste of his time. _"Curious, how you are always present when the Alliance tries to bring charges to bear on me. I didn't know humans held grudges so well."_

His head rose, and the eyes locked on Shepard.

"_And this must be your protégée. Commander Shepard, I take it? You're the one whose incompetence ended up destroying that valuable Prothean beacon."_

Shepard narrowed his eyes, and ignored the insult.

"The Eden Prime reports are classified," he said. "How did you know about the beacon?"

"_With Nihlus dead, his files passed onto me,"_ Saren replied. _"I read the Eden Prime reports, including yours, Shepard. I was . . . unimpressed. But that was to be expected. I know your personal history, Commander, and I know how mentally dist-"_

"Objection!" Udina cut in before Shepard could respond. "The Council Chamber is no place to throw around petty insults!"

Shepard glared at Saren, biting back the anger flaring up at the very deliberate insult. He knew that Saren had meant to bring up his anger issues and mental history in an attempt to discredit him.

"The reports admit that no one witnessed the death of Nihlus," added the asari Councilor, bringing the discussion back on-topic with an admonishing glare at Saren. "Without any reliable evidence, we cannot follow through on these charges."

"There's still one other issue to consider," Anderson continued. "The vision received by Shepard from the beacon."

"_Are we allowing dreams into evidence now?"_ Saren mocked. _"Ridiculous. Aside from the fact that this 'vision' is entirely irrelevant to these charges, the 'evidence' itself is entirely unverifiable!"_

"Agreed," the salarian Councilor replied. "This _is_ inadmissible evidence. Of that we are all in consensus." The other two Councilors nodded.

"_Is this all the evidence you have, Anderson?" _Saren asked. _"An odd body and a corrupted recording that mentions my name in passing? You'll try anything to bring me down, won't you? But what more can you expect from a _human_."_

"_Enough_, Saren," the asari Councilor admonished. "We are aware of your personal history involving Captain Anderson. It is irrelevant to this meeting's purpose."

"_This meeting has no purpose!"_ Saren declared. _"The charges are baseless. I have a corroborated alibi from my associates on Noveria as to where I was at the time of the attack. There is no verifiable proof of these wild accusations."_

"Saren is correct," Councilor Velarn stated. "Unless you have other evidence to bring forth to this hearing?"

Udina looked as if someone had handed him his own liver on a plate. He finally shook his head.

"No, Councilor," he admitted quietly. The three Councilors glanced between one another, and finally nodded.

One thing that the Council was famous for was swift decision-making; they didn't waste time on formalities, and most Council meetings were quick and relatively informal. This was no different, as the Council reached their decision in seconds.

"Then we find the defendant innocent of all charges," the asari said. "Ambassador, your petition to have Saren disbarred from the Spectres has been denied. This meeting of the Council is adjourned."

"_I'm glad to see justice served,"_ Saren added, before closing the link to the Council Chamber. His hologram faded immediately. A few moments later, the Council members exited the room, and the spectators retreated, followed a few minutes later by the knot of humans who had accused Saren.

Shepard had done his best to keep his cool during the meeting, but once they were moving down to the third tier, and spun and punched the wall, snarling. If it weren't for his armor, he might have broken something. Dark energy twisted and swirled around him, tingeing the air dark blue for a few seconds.

"Control yourself, Commander!" Udina commanded, and Shepard spun back toward the Ambassador. Anger boiled through him for a moment, before he pushed it back down under control. Udina waited until Shepard was calm again, before turning toward Anderson. "It was a mistake bringing you into that hearing, Captain. It made the Council question our motives."

"I agree," Anderson said quietly. "But that doesn't change anything. We need to prove Saren was behind the attack on Eden Prime."

"How could they ignore the evidence?" Ashley said. "We-"

"Like Saren said," Shepard cut in, "He has an alibi. We didn't know about that, and the entire case hinged on us proving he was there on Eden Prime at the time of the attack."

"But he _was_ there," Ashley said. "He had to be. I don't buy this crap about Nihlus' files passing to him. He couldn't have gotten them and read them that quickly."

"Agreed," Udina mused. "Hm. We need someone with information. Someone who might be able to prove that Saren's alibi is false."

"What was that about Noveria?" Kaidan asked.

"Saren has major investments in several corporations based on Noveria," Udina replied. "Binary Helix among them. They provided an alibi that Saren was at their facilities on the date of the attack."

"Throw enough money around, and you can make anything seem like the truth," Shepard said. "We just need to prove the inconsistencies."

"Barla Von," Anderson said, looking up.

"Who?"

"Volus financial expert, based on the Presidium," Anderson explained. "Crafty fellow. Does work for major corporations and other people who want their finances handled quietly. Specializes in moving large sums of money without leaving a trail. All perfectly legal, but Von knows all the loopholes."

"What makes him special?" Ashley asked.

"He's an agent for the Shadow Broker," Anderson said, which made Udina frown.

Shepard had heard of the Shadow Broker. He was an information dealer, who bought and sold secrets to governments and individuals, and was probably one of the most powerful intelligence brokers in the entire galaxy.

"Whatever he has, it is going to be expensive," Udina said. "Do we have any other options?"

"That turian C-Sec officer," Kaidan said. "Garrus. He might be able to help us. Said he had some leads to follow up on."

"Any other options?" Shepard asked. Udina shook his head.

"None that I can think of," he said.

"Alright," Anderson added. "We should get to work."

"No, Captain," Udina cut in. "I don't want you anywhere near this investigation. Shepard will handle this."

Shepard understood why; any evidence they uncovered with Anderson's help would be suspect, considering this apparent history between him and Saren. Still, the captain seemed deeply unhappy about it.

"Agreed," Anderson said, voice subdued. He glanced to Shepard. "Commander, this investigation is yours now, but if you need anything, come to me."

"Come to _us_," Udina corrected. "I want updates as you find anything out, Commander. Understood?"

Shepard stared back at Udina. He'd barely known this man for a few hours and already he found him obstructive and annoying.

"Yes sir," the Commander answered.

He'd keep Udina updated, but not updated enough to interfere with the investigation.

* * *

The light from the Ward outside filtered through the window blinds, casting multicolored bars across the apartment's interior. There wasn't much to see inside, just a couple of beds, some chairs and a table, a few lamps and other assorted furniture. The place was devoid of the personal possessions that made up a place that had been lived in, what humans called "knick-knacks." The apartment was a shelter, a safehouse, and base of operations. It wasn't a home.

"Hey. It's me. Yeah, we went after the quarian like you'd told us."

The speaker was a turian, who went by the name Telan. He had a last name, but he didn't like to give it out. The rest of his team were sitting around the apartment, checking weapons, eating, or getting a brief bit of shut-eye. Between the whole group, there were four turians and five salarians, and Telan was their effective leader.

"_She escaped,"_ replied the voice on the other side, a cool, feminine tone. It wasn't a question, but Telan was thrown off by the response. She knew?

He gripped the comlink in his left hand tightly, while his right ran over his face. Most of his face was painted a dark reddish-brown, but around his mandibles and mouth he'd marked it white, with jagged points that made his face look like the jaws of a predator.

"Yeah, she got away," he added. "We're trying to find her now."

"_Relax,"_ the voice replied, still calm and controlled. _"We have the quarian issue under control."_

"Yeah?" Telan asked, stopping. "Okay, so we'll stand down on the quarian. What else do you need us for?"

"_We need you to stand by,"_ the woman on the other end said. _"We will have an opportunity to eliminate the quarian soon enough. For now, we have a different set of targets for you."_

"Okay, hold on, let me get booted up for a transfer," Telan said, and sat down beside his computer. A few seconds later, it was running and prepared. "Okay. Send it."

A face appeared on his screen, and his eyes tightened.

"Huh. Commander Shepard. Human Systems Alliance military. Biotic. Special forces, N7. And . . . oh, man, this second is even worse. You never send us the easy ones, do you?"

"_Eliminate them, and quickly,"_ the voice replied, and then the comlink died. Telan sat back, exhaled, and nodded. He could do this. After all, he was a turian, and his team were damned good.

"Boys, over here," Telan ordered. "We got a new target."

* * *

-

* * *

_**Authors' Notes: **_As I said before, I'm working to massage the dialogue of this series into something proper for a narrative as opposed to a videogame. I also wanted to address some issues with the Council.

It's rather terribly annoying that the names for the specific Council members are never stated. ME2 mentions Velarn, and I pegged him as the turian, but the others remain unnamed, and anyone who's read _Mass Effect: Revelation_ will note that they didn't mention Councilor names either. It's bothersome to refer to them as (species) Councilor, but no other way around it without making up something completely off the wall.

Next chapter, we finally get some real action, and start seeing a few more familiar faces.

Until next chapter . . . .


	7. Chapter VI: Assassins

_**Chapter Six: Assassins**_

"Helpfully:" said the hulking alien behind the desk, in its calm, deep monotone voice. "Officer Vakarian is currently not in his office."

Shepard frowned. He was standing inside the Citadel Security headquarters that was connected to the Presidium and the Zakera Ward arm. The C-Sec officer behind the desk was an immense, three-meter-tall, quadrapedal alien with small black eyes and flap-like nostrils through which it apparently spoke. It resembled a mixture of an Earth-born gorilla and a cow in its slow, steady movements, but the elcor's immense forearms, hefty shoulders, and dome-like head – which seemed fused to the creatures' torso, with no visible neck – gave the creature a sense of restrained power.

Of course, the two-meter long assault cannon he'd spotted behind the desk might have added to that perception. The elcor were big and friendly, but that didn't equate into slow or harmless. If someone tried to storm this level of the headquarters building, the "receptionist" could probably hold down the hallway beyond by itself using that massive weapon.

"He gave me a number to contact him at, but I haven't been able to reach him. He's not answering my calls," Shepard explained. "Do you have any other contact information for him?"

Shepard's team had split up after leaving the Tower. Kaidan and Ashley were tracking down Barla Von, while Shepard tried to find Garrus. The former were up in the Presidium's Financial District, while Shepard had taken an elevator to the Citadel Security Academy, which doubled as their station-wide headquarters.

"Respectfully: Citadel Security does not give out personal contact information for its officers, for their own safety," the eclor explained, its deep monotone voice never changing. "Helpfully: If you would prefer it, we can page officer Vakarian, and you may wait here for his response or for him to return to his office."

"That's fine," Shepard said. "Could you just let him know that Commander Shepard is asking for any information he has on that investigation we spoke of earlier?"

"Politely: Of course. I will notify him of your message."

"Thanks."

Shepard walked back up the hallway toward the entryway that connected to the Presidium, and activated his comlink.

"_Anderson,"_ came the response on the other end.

"It's Shepard," he replied. "I couldn't get in touch with Garrus, looks like he's out of his office. Any word from Alenko or Williams?"

"_They're still checking out Barla Von,"_ Anderson replied. _"No word back yet."_

"_Shepard,"_ another voice cut in. The Commander recognized Udina. _"I think I may have a lead that can help you track down this C-Sec officer."_

"I'll take any help I can get," Shepard said, only slightly annoyed that Udina was listening in to his communications with the captain.

"_His name is Harkin,"_ Udina said. _"He's my personal contact inside C-Sec. Longtime human officer who's been in the organization since humanity joined the Citadel."_

"_Harkin,"_ Anderson said with disgust. _"Forget him. He's as corrupt as they come, and he's apparently been suspended. Drinking on the job. I wouldn't waste my time with that bastard."_

"Bastard or not, if he's got information, I'll take it," Shepard said. "You know where I can find him?"

"_There's a bar on Zakera Ward, called Chora's Den, down on level Fifty Two,"_ Anderson said. _"Harkin favors it. Probably getting drunk down there. But be careful, because that place is in a high-crime area. A lot of bodies end up being found down there. You probably won't be bothered by the local scum, but you should keep your eyes open."_

"Understood. Thanks, Captain."

* * *

Chora's Den was a circular room accessible via a lower-Ward corridor that opened into a walkway overlooking an air-transport tunnel. Flying cars shot past underneath the walkway they walked across, and passed beneath a pair of holographic signs showing suggestively reclining asari, before entering the small, unassuming door that led to the bar.

The first thing Tali'Zorah nar Rayya noted about Chora's Den was the scent. Or rather, the olfactory sensors in her suit made note of them, and displayed a readout of the various toxins across her helmet's head-up-display. She counted no less than twenty illicit substances in the air, most of them in trace amounts.

Next, she noted the quiet, sensuous music. It wasn't a dance club, but rather a place of illicit vices and altered mindsets. Asari and female human dancers flowed and twisted on a platform overlooking the circular bar in the center of the room, or gave private dances to patrons of multiple species in the corners. She noted the clientele was mostly either human or turian, with a few asari here and there. Harsh red and purple neon light was apparent, contrasting with the white and lavender metal that all the furniture and flooring was built from, softening the lines of everything in the room. A bulky krogan bouncer, even bigger than most examples of his species, loomed at a far side of the Den, beside a darkened hallway.

Tali's escort spoke to the krogan for a moment, and he cocked his head sideways. The alien's eyes flicked over Tali for a moment, and he nodded.

"Fist is waiting," he said, and the criminals led her into the hallway. They passed through a locked door and another pair of bodyguards, and then down another hallway, this one lit by softer blue lamps. Beyond that hallway was Fist's office.

Fist was a human, which didn't surprise her, and he wore an expensive suit of black armor like it was a fashion statement. He had close-cropped hair and a face marked by several scars. The office was well-appointed, and he stood up, walking around the enormous desk to greet her.

"Evening, miss Rayya," he offered. "It's alright if I call you that? I don't deal with quarians very often."

"Miss Rayya is fine," Tali replied. Fist gestured to the table before his office, and he sat down on one side of it. Tali took the couch on the opposite side, noting the plushiness of the cushions even through her suit.

"So, what can I help you with?" he asked. "Doctor Michel indicated to me that you required disappearing."

"Not exactly," she replied. "I have information that I must ensure reaches the Citadel Council. I've been trying to contact them, but it hasn't worked out, and has attracted . . . attention."

"Really," Fist said, leaning forward, curious. "What kind of attention?"

"Hitmen," she explained. "Assassins tried to kill me when I went to meet with a Citadel Security officer named Garrus Vakarian. They were wearing C-Sec uniforms."

"That's . . . worrisome," Fist admitted. "You haven't been able to speak with Garrus directly?"

"No, not yet," she said. "The information was relevant to his investigations into a Spectre."

"If Citadel Security has been compromised, you can't be sure they'll use the information," Fist said. "But I know who can. You ever heard of the Shadow Broker?"

"Yes, but not much," she replied. Behind her mask, she frowned. "Can the Shadow Broker get this information to the Council?"

"Oh, certainly," Fist said, nodding. "The Shadow Broker has contacts with every government in the galaxy. He can get the intelligence to anyone who wants it."

"I'd like to meet the Broker, if possible," she said, a feeling of relief washing over her. She pushed that back just as quickly; Tali couldn't afford to relax now. "Face-to-face."

"Yeah, I can arrange that," Fist said with a smile that set her on edge, and she remembered Michel's unspoken warning. Until she'd gotten the information to where it needed to go, she couldn't trust anyone.

* * *

The first thing that hit Shepard about the Wards was how crowded they were. As soon as he stepped off the transport cab, he was assaulted by a myriad of voices. Zakera Ward was probably one of the most heavily-intermixed of the various wards; three of the wards were dominated by either asari, salarian, or turian communities, respectively, but Zakera saw a heavily intermixed population including plenty of hanar, volus, eclor, and humans. That resulted in the Ward being a chaotic mixture of peoples, which wasn't helped by the equally chaotic nature of the countless buildings on the arm.

Every structure had dozens of corridors and side passages. Hallways as wide as city streets were in every building, and lined with everything from small vendors in market stalls to "indoor" shops to entire suites leased out to serve as bars, restaurants, or major sales outlets. Holographic displays, hawking vendors, alien voices, and hundreds of scents that included food, drinks, oils, potentially illicit substances, and the body odors of a dozen species clogged the air.

Shepard made his way through the press of intermixed sapient life, moving through the crowds until he found a lift that would take him to Level Fifty Two. He stepped into the elevator and started to close it, when a human woman ran up toward the doors, waving her hands.

"Wait!" she called. "Hold the elevator!"

Shepard did so, if only to be polite, and the woman stepped inside. She was attractive, had short black hair, and was clad in one of the in-vogue fashion gowns that the asari had designed. It was obviously asari-created because it exposed the woman's midriff while still being elegant and refined-looking. Shepard noticed this purely because of professional detachment and his observational tendencies.

_Right_. _Ahem_.

The doors slid closed, and the elevator started moving.

"So, Commander Shepard," the woman said, and smiled at him.

_Oh, hell._

"Do I know you?" he asked, resigning himself to this. Whoever the woman was – likely news media – she'd been smart enough to isolate him in an elevator.

"No, sorry," she admitted, looking a bit sheepish. She had a pleasant voice, and seemed friendly enough, but the press tended to be before they skewered you on the air.

"Emily Wong," she said, offering her hand. He took it. "I'm an independent investigative journalist."

_Right on the money,_ Shepard noted.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"I was hoping to ask you a few questions about the rumors coming out of the Council Chamber," she said. "If you don't mind?"

"I'm stuck here for a while," Shepard remarked, nodding toward the elevator and the slowly shifting numbers. "Just as long as you understand that I can't answer questions relating to classified material. Is this official?"

"Not official, no," she replied. "Don't worry, this is all off the record. No recording devices."

"Thank you," he said. "Let's make a deal. I answer your questions the best I can, and you tell me what you've found."

"Fair enough," she replied. "So, rumor has it that there's been a high-level investigation into a possibly rogue Spectre. Can you comment on that?"

"I cannot confirm or deny that," Shepard replied, trotting out the old standby line.

"Well, I've been hearing reports that you've been making inquiries into an officer who was investigating a Spectre," she added.

"That is true," Shepard replied, not seeing any point in denying it. "I was trying to meet with Garrus Vakarian."

"Officer Vakarian has been making some inquiries into certain elements of organized crime on the Citadel," she continued. "Can you comment on that?"

"I haven't been made aware of that," Shepard replied. "Do you have any more concrete information?"

"Just that he's looking into a man named Fist," she said. "Asking questions about him from his contacts."

"Hm. You know anything about a C-Sec officer named Harkin?"

"Did a piece on him a month back," she replied with a smirk. "Probably why he's on suspension."

"Anything you can tell me about him?" Shepard asked.

"First human C-Sec officer," she said. "Apparently he's been a disgrace ever since. Roughing up suspects, drinking on the job, skimming money from drug busts. Had enough political clout by being the first human on the force that he got away with it. I guess C-Sec got tired of him once they had enough humans on the force, and when my story aired, they took him down."

"Sounds like a fun guy to talk to," Shepard said. He glanced up at the display, which showed they were a few moments away from Level Fifty-Two.

"Um, Commander," Emily added. "If you don't mind, I've got a request for you."

"What kind?" he asked.

"I've been trying to do a report on organized crime in this Ward for a while, but none of my sources can get me any real information," she said. "If you can turn anything up, I'll be sure to compensate you for it."

"Seems reasonable enough," Shepard replied. "Maybe after this is over, I can sit down for an interview, too?"

"Sure," she said, with a smile, as the elevator slowed down – well, even more than usual. "An exclusive with you? I'd love that!"

"Looks like this is my stop," Shepard said as the elevator came to a halt.

"Well, it was good talking to you," she offered. "And don't forget about that information!"

"I'll keep it in mind," he replied, as the door opened.

Shepard started to step out of the elevator, when a turian in dark clothes and a face painted like a snarling predator shoved a pistol in his face and pulled the trigger.

* * *

The Financial District of the Presidium was just like everywhere else, they found: safe, secure, immaculate, clean. There weren't even any droppings from the multitude of avian-analogues in the trees lining the walkways and shops.

Ashley didn't like it, but then, she'd always had a paranoid streak about her. It didn't help that she didn't spend much time among aliens, so being surrounded by them while walking in an alien space station, with vaguely-familiar trees and animals nearby was throwing her off. It would have been worse if she wasn't walking with Kaidan, who seemed a lot more relaxed around aliens than she was.

"Wonder if anyone ever drowned in that lake?" Ashley asked as they passed over another bridge that ran alongside the huge body of water outside the Citadel Tower. They walked beneath a statue of a krogan soldier, head held high in what looked like a defiant shout of victory. The signs around the statue said it was a memorial of the krogan contribution in the Rachni Wars, and also a memorial of the subsequent Krogan Rebellions.

She'd learned quite a bit regarding alien history during secondary school, and quite a bit more during Marine training. An entire week had been spent on discussing various alien species and their history, tactics, and methodology. She knew from both her training and the combat she'd been through just how tough the krogan were, and could only imagine what facing entire armies of elite, battle-hardened krogan troops would be like, especially with armor, air, and artillery support.

"Hard to believe the krogan were once seen as the saviors of the galaxy," she remarked.

"Now it's the turians' turn to be the saviors," added Kaidan. "Wonder what that says about the Council?"

"I really can't see the krogan ever being on the Council," she said. "But they proved that in the Rebellions."

"Heard a lot of arguments on that one, myself," Kaidan mused. "A lot of people are saying that the genophage was a war crime, but a lot are saying it was necessary at the time. Krogan had something like a nine hundred percent growth rate off their homeworld. Pretty crazy biology."

"Yeah. Hey, here we are." Ashley pointed to an unassuming office built into one of the wall sections. It was a simple, unadorned door with a hologram beside it displaying _"Office of Barla Von: Financial Services."_

"Doesn't look like the place for an agent of the Shadow Broker," Kaidan mused.

"LT, um," she said, and shook her head.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I'm . . . not good with . . . aliens. You understand?"

"Yeah, I get what you mean," Kaidan replied. "Let me do the talking, Chief. You just be scary and intimidating."

"That I can do."

They stepped inside. The pair was expecting a receptionist area, but instead they found themselves in a small, eight-by-ten meter office devoid of pictures or other decoration. A simple, neat desk sat in the middle of the office, with a set of comfortable chairs in front of it and a single volus on a cushion behind it. The suited alien looked up as they entered, the gleaming optics on his facemask locking onto the pair of humans. There was a sharp intake of air inside the mask, but it sounded mechanical, not startled.

"Ah, two members of the Earth-clan," the volus' slightly filtered voice came out. His tone was curious and conversational. His hands played across the interface board in front of him, and the holographic display shifted. "Hm. First Lieutenant Kaidan Alenka, and Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. Most interesting."

Ashley scowled, suspicious. How did this volus know who they were?

"Alenko," Kaidan corrected. "Are you Barla Von?"

"Indeed, I am," the volus said, inhaling. Every time he did so, his head shifted a little bit, changing the angle he was looking at them from. "I apologize for the mistake in pronunciation. I do not deal with the Earth-clan much. Most of my clients are salarian, hanar, or other volus."

"You know a lot about us, apparently," Kaidan added.

"I make it my business to keep track of anyone exceptional or important moving around on the Citadel." Inhale. "Normally, a pair of Alliance soldiers wouldn't attract that much attention, but you arrived on the _Normandy_. You were in the company of Commander Shepard and Captain Anderson. You were present at the Council meeting yesterday." Inhale. "A pair of Alliance soldiers who keep such company attract attention, and interest."

"Guess we should watch our backs more carefully," Ashley murmured. Barla Von nodded, an oddly human gesture.

"Indeed, you should. The Citadel may be a spectacular and glorious achievement of the Prothean people, but it is not perfect." Inhale. "Run afoul of the wrong people, and you likely won't realize your mistake until you're dead, or worse."

"We were told to come to you for information," Kaidan said, shifting things back on-subject. "You've got a handle on information on the Citadel."

"Yes, I do. I suspect this is regarding a certain potentially-rogue Spectre," Barla said, and inhaled. "The display in the Council Chamber was most interesting. You are no doubt seeking to strike down Saren's apparently foolproof alibi."

"Can you help us?" Kaidan asked. The volus was silent for a second. He inhaled, exhaled, and then nodded.

"Normally, information such as this would cost a great deal, but you are most fortunate this day." Inhale. "I will give you this for free."

"What's the catch?" Kaidan asked.

"No catch," Barla replied. "You have come to me because you likely know whom I work for. And the Spectre has angered said employer quite a bit, so any punishment that can be exacted will please my employer."

"Saren betrayed the Shadow Broker," Kaidan said, and Barla shook his head, though he seemed not at all bothered by the casual mention of the information seller.

"Not quite," Barla said. "Saren convinced another agent of the Shadow Broker to turn on him. It seems that information that should have gone to the Shadow Broker was instead sold to Saren." Inhale. "Damaging information. A krogan bounty hunter has been hired to deal with the situation."

"Who was the agent?" Ashley asked. "And what was the information?"

"I don't know," Barla replied. "That was kept confidential. But as I said, I track interesting arrivals to the Citadel." Inhale. "The krogan's name is Urdnot Wrex. He has a reputation for carrying out these tasks in a most ruthless and efficient manner. Most of the Battlemasters do." Inhale. "If you desire this information regarding Saren, you should find the krogan. My sources last put him headed toward Chora's Den."

"Thanks for the information," Kaidan said, and the volus nodded.

"You are welcome, Earth-clan."

* * *

The bullet wasn't normal ammunition; it was a proton mod, which meant that it would blow right through Shepard's shields, even if the gun wasn't being shoved through his kinetic barriers at speeds slow enough that the shields wouldn't stop the weapon.

Shepard jerked sideways as the handgun – a massive, heavy-duty model – went off no more than an inch from his forehead. He twisted his head sideways enough that the proton round ripped past his temple, drawing a long, harsh scorch mark across the side of his head.

Electricity lanced through a thousand tiny nodes of element zero in Shepard's body, and raw kinetic force rippled out of him and hammered the would-be assassin in the chest. The turian seemed momentarily surprised before he was flung away from the elevator and launched backwards.

Shepard's assault rifle slid off the hardpoint on his shoulder and unfolded in his hands as he slid behind the corner of the elevator. He glanced back behind him, to see Emily had ducked for cover on the other side, probably the moment she'd seen the gun.

There was a sudden burst of gunfire outside the elevator, with rounds hammering the interior of the car. Shepard reached up to the control display, only to have the holographics short out and fade away.

"Damn it," he hissed. Someone had sabotaged the elevator controls. He leaned out, rifle up, and spotted the turian he'd flung backward. The alien was slumped and still, having slammed into the wall on the other side of the corridor and apparently broken his neck on contact. Another turian and a salarian were outside in the corridor beyond, the former taking cover behind an open doorway to his left and the latter was behind a dumpster about as far away to the right. They had a perfect crossfire, which became apparent when bullets slammed into his shields from both directions, knocking them out almost immediately.

Shepard dropped back behind cover, and glanced to Emily, who was still okay. He would have expected her to be panicked, but she was only surprised and frightened by the sudden attack. Clearly, the woman was made of sterner stuff than he expected, which made sense if she'd been reporting on organized crime as long as she had.

"They've got us pinned down, both sides of the corridor," he reported calmly, watching his shields recharge. "Light weapons, submachineguns from what it looks like." He left out the fact that the enemy likely wasn't going to play a waiting game. If they hesitated too long, the bad guys would just toss grenades into the elevator car and call it a day.

"What are we going to do?" she asked. Her tone was worried and anxious, but not panicked. Good.

"Your comm working?" he asked, and she checked, then nodded.

"Good. Call C-Sec."

"They won't get here in time," she said, and he nodded.

"Do it anyway," he replied. She activated her omnitool, the glowing light surging up around her wrist. Shepard waited a heartbeat, and then shot up, spinning around the side of the elevator.

As expected, Shepard saw the salarian was doing something with his own omnitool, doubtless trying to jam Emily's transmission. If he was equipped with a decent set of electronic warfare gear, that meant he would be able to knock out her comms in a couple seconds.

And as Shepard expected, the salarian probably had a feed into the elevator, which meant the moment Emily went for her comms, he went to jam and disable them. But if he was jamming her, he wasn't shooting.

Shepard sent another surge of biotic force at the salarian as he was looking down, and the alien was snatched up and hurled backward. He bounced off the wall and an angle and went tumbling down the corridor for a good fifteen meters. By the time he'd hit the ground and come to a halt, Shepard was spinning on the turian and firing, putting three rapid, five-round bursts into the assassin's shields. The first burst pounded them down, the second forced him behind cover, and the third kept him in cover while Shepard advanced.

The assassin didn't expose himself again. He simply popped and primed a grenade and tossed it around the doorway.

Shepard saw that coming, and the grenade went flying back into the doorway, carried by another biotic shove. He thought he heard the alien yell in surprise before the grenade detonated in his face.

The salarian clambered to his feet, but by the time he got there, Shepard drilled two bursts into his suit's shields. The second burst blew chunks of armor out of the alien's torso and pitched him back off his feet, where he twitched a few times and went still.

"Emily," Shepard called, stepping back into the elevator. Her omnitool was flickering, and she was fiddling with it.

"They're jamming it," she said, looking up.

"Not anymore," Shepard replied. "They're dead."

"They . . . are?" she said, confused, and looked outside. ". . . wow," she finally managed. "You . . . you killed them in seconds."

"Any slower and they would have had me first," he replied. "Can you get through to C-Sec?"

The omnitool had stopped flickering, and she nodded. She started putting in the call, while Shepard activated his won, keeping an eye on their surroundings.

"_Anderson,"_ came the response.

"Shepard," he replied. "Captain, I think I'm on the right track. Someone just tried to kill me."

* * *

Chora's Den smelled like he expected it. More importantly, it reacted like he'd expected it.

Everyone who saw Urdnot Wrex got a little quieter. Maybe it was the armor, or the half-dozen weapons he was carrying on his suit, or the myriad scars across his face and crest telling the tale of a warrior who'd been alive longer than most other sapients in the galaxy.

Most likely, though, it was just reputation.

Wrex strode across the Den like he owned it, and no one questioned him. He walked up to the bouncer beside the door, and the two sized each other up. The Bouncer wasn't old or hard, but he was strong and well-armed. He had the look of a century or so of war about him, enough to make Wrex respect him, if not wary of him. Wary was about as far as Wrex went with any threat.

After spending over a millennia killing across the galaxy, very little could make Urdnot Wrex afraid.

"Is Fist here?" Wrex asked casually. Most people listening would take it as a simple question. The krogan knew otherwise.

"He is," the krogan said. "And he knows you're here to see him."

"Tell him to come on out," Wrex growled. "Get this over with."

"He's not coming out, Wrex," barked the bouncer. "End of story."

"If Fist doesn't come out, I'm coming in after him," Wrex rumbled. "Make sure he knows that."

Wrex didn't need to hear the sound of unfolding weapons to know he had a half-dozen guns trained on him, or at least readied to snap up and fire. He could see the majority of the Den from where he stood, his eyes sweeping to either side. Like all krogan, Wrex had two-hundred-seventy-degree vision due to his sidemounted eyes. He counted five bodyguards tensing and watching him, and the flicker of low-profile kinetic barriers activating on all of them. All their weapons were hidden but at hand.

Only one human was watching him but not arming himself; a male with a long scar over his features and a medigel application over one of his temples. He was clad in dark gray armor and carried a couple of mounted weapons, either military or mercenary.

None of the bodyguards attracted his notice, but the armored human, standing a few paces to his rear and right, caught one of Wrex's eyes, if only for a moment. The bodyguards were nervous and tense, guns-for-hire, but the armored one was a warrior.

No matter what species one was, the warriors were always obvious from their eyes.

"Get out of here," the krogan bouncer growled. "We see you again, we'll be throwing out your corpse."

Younger krogan would have responded with a counter-taunt, or laughter, or even a dismissal. Wrex just stared back at the other krogan long enough for him to slightly ease his weight back, as if to accept a charge or headbutt.

That was all that needed to be said. Wrex turned and stalked away. The bandaged human was still there, so he angled his path toward the alien, to see how he'd react.

"Out of my way, human, I have no quarrel with you," Wrex barked. The human slid out of the way; not afraid or startled, but wary and respectful. They met eyes as they passed. Wrex saw respect in that gaze. Respect, but not fear.

Good.

* * *

Shepard watched the quiet confrontation with the two krogan, and had met the eyes of the alien called "Wrex" as he passed. He saw age there, curiosity, and a bit of growing respect as the alien passed. There was contempt for everyone in the room for himself.

Weird.

Once the krogan had left, Shepard returned to searching the bar. C-Sec had arrived at the shooting in the corridor in minutes, but hadn't detained him for long. They asked questions, got testimony from Shepard and Emily Wong, and a medic had treated his face wound.

Apparently, between his credentials as an Alliance war hero and Emily Wong's reputation on the Citadel, they'd let him go. At least, that was the story given to him by a heavyset human officer named Lang. Shepard suspected that in reality, Udina or Anderson leaned on C-Sec to get him released quickly.

Chora's Den resembled every den of iniquity that he'd visited before, so he only wasted a few moments get mentally accustomed to scantily-clad asari and human women in . . . interesting and variable forms of leather clothing before he got back to work. He scanned the bar, keeping an eye out for anyone in uniform, and doing his best to avoid being distracted by the . . . flexibility.

Shepard shook his head, and as he circled the bar, he spotted a balding man in a C-Sec uniform, which looked almost pitch-black in the dim red lighting. The man was bent over the bar, nursing a drink and looking thoroughly miserable.

Time to add to the misery, Shepard thought with a mental grin.

"Alliance military," the officer said, grinning as he looked up at his new companion. Drunk he may have been, but he wasn't unaware. "I could have been a Marine once. But no, had to join the goddamned Citadel Security. Look where it got me."

"You Harkin?" Shepard asked. It was academic; he was the only man in the room wearing a C-Sec uniform but not any identifier tags.

"Who wants to know?" the man replied, voice slightly slurred. He glared up at Shepard. "Wait a minute, I know you. Shepard, right? Part of Captain Anderson's crew." The partially wasted Harkin started laughing. "Guess since he couldn't bring down Saren, he's sending you to do his dirty work, huh?"

"I need information," Shepard said, refusing to be goaded. "I'm looking for a C-Sec officer, Garrus Vakarian."

"Yeah, I know Garrus," Harkin said, snorting. "Only C-Sec officer in as hot water as me, but he's there because he goes too far. Goddamn hot-head. Only reason he's not suspended like me is because he brown-noses everyone and beats suspects for information. But he gets results, so noooo, nobody cares if he breaks the rules, especially since he's a turian. Double goddamned standards up and down the force."

Shepard let the drunken cop rant for a bit. Once he'd settled down and taken another drink, he continued.

"Do you know where I can find Garrus?" he asked.

"Yeah, I know what he's up to," muttered Harkin. "But let me ask you something first. Did Anderson ever tell you about his big secret? The whole reason he and Saren hate each other?"

Shepard shook his head, humoring the drunk.

"Because," Harkin said, grinning, "Anderson was a Spectre."

"How do you know this?" Shepard asked, doing his best to hide his surprise. What hell? Anderson, a Spectre?

"All real hush-hush," Harkin said, taking obvious pleasure in trying to discomfit Shepard. "Word has it they gave him and Saren a secret job together, to test him out. But Anderson fucked it up so bad they threw him out. Bet he never told you about that, did he?"

"Garrus," Shepard said after Harkin was finished, refusing to give the asshole the satisfaction. Harkin glared back, before finally snarling in petulant anger.

"Garrus was poking around Doctor Michel's office," he said. "Heard a couple of Fist's guys talking about it, worried he was poking into their business. Don't know if he's still there."

"Thanks," Shepard said, standing up.

"Yeah, get out of here," bitched Harkin. "Let me drink in peace."

Shepard momentarily considered introducing Harkin's forehead to the bartop, but reigned that thought in. Instead, he moved out of the bar, activating his comm as he did so.

"Alenko?" he asked.

"_Loud and clear, Commander."_

"You found anything?" he asked.

"_Yes sir,"_ Kaidan replied. _"Want to meet up and compare notes?"_

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours," Shepard replied. "I know where we can meet."

* * *

No one bothered him as he strode out of Chora's Den, but as he walked up the corridors, Wrex put in a few quick calls to his contacts. The information that came back, including a detailed visual scan of that odd human's face, intrigued him, and he digested the information while waiting for the inevitable.

He guessed it was about thirty minutes later when C-Sec showed up, intercepting him as he strode up the corridors. He wasn't surprised at how fast they moved; Fist had connections inside the police. When a three-man team of officers showed up with assault weapons in hand, he knew he'd made an impression. Two salarians and a turian, all looking like trouble.

"Urdnot Wrex?" asked the leader of the C-Sec team as they walked toward him. The corridor here was low-traffic; there was no one else in sight.

His eyes fixed on the turian team leader, and noted the alien had facepaint that resembled the white teeth of a predator.

"Yeah?"

"We received a report that you were threatening the owner of Chora's Den," the turian continued. "We've got orders to bring you in for some questions."

"Fist had to be pissing himself if he called you this quickly," Wrex mused, the corners of his wide mouth turning up in a slight grin.

"We'll need you to surrender your weapons and come with us," the turian said, as the two salarians split apart and began setting up a casual but no less threatening crossfire.

"Hm," Wrex said. "Fine."

The shotgun at his lower back came up and fired without warning, and fired into the turian at point-blank range. At the same time, dark energy twisted around him, and the salarian on the left went hurtling backward from a sudden blast of biotic force, smashing violently into the wall.

The remaining salarian snapped up his weapon and fired, but by the time the weapon was up, Wrex was hurtling toward him. The rifle let out a single burst that marginally drained Wrex's shields before the krogan slammed into the much smaller alien, carried him up across the corridor on his shoulder, and crushed the alien against the wall.

The turian lay on the floor, dark blood weeping out of his face and throat, but he was still alive; the shotgun's mass accelerator rounds had torn through his shield but were slowed down enough to not kill immediately.

Wrex looked down at the dying turian.

"Rule of thumb," Wrex mumbled. "Don't try the fake arrest routine on a Battlemaster who survived the Rebellions. It's insulting."

He pointed the shotgun at the dying assassin's face and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Two hours later, Kaidan and Ashley found themselves walking into a dance club on Zakera Ward known as Flux. The rhythmic beats of some alien variant of techno music filled the club.

"I guess dance music is universal," Ashley mused.

"You see the Commander anywhere?" Kaidan asked.

"There," she replied, pointing as they moved past the human bouncer. The club had an open air balcony that looked out over the Ward arm, and Shepard had taken a seat out as far from the thumping music as he could. Even this far away, they could see the medigel application attached to the side of his head.

"Hey, Commander," Ashley said as they stepped out onto the balcony and approached his table. "You okay?"

"Just a scratch," Shepard said, while gesturing to the scalp wound. "I was lucky they used proton rounds. A regular round might have knocked me unconscious even with a glancing blow."

"Looks like we're on the right trail," Kaidan mused as they sat down. "What did C-Sec say? Are they going to reopen the case now that you've been attacked?"

"We've got no proof that these assassins were with Saren in the first place," Shepard said, sounding annoyed.

"What's C-Sec doing now?" Kaidan asked.

"C-Sec is 'investigating'," Shepard said with an official tinge to his voice. "They were wanting to take me in for questioning, but I think Udina leaned on the Executor and got them to let me go. They're passing it off as a simple mugging."

"Right," Ashley said, her tone sarcastic. "Muggers who just happen to pick your elevator and set up a textbook crossfire and were wearing battle armor with specialist weapon mods."

"Did you find anything?" Shepard asked, and Kaidan nodded.

"Looks like Saren's convinced someone who works for the Shadow Broker to turn on him," Kaidan said. "And he's not taking that lightly. There's a krogan named Wrex here to take care of the traitor. Von said we find him, we find the leak and might get some evidence on Saren."

"Wrex?" Shepard echoed, thoughtful. "I saw a krogan in Chora's Den who went by that name. He was threatening the owner. You think they might be related?"

"Sounds reasonable," Kaidan said.

"What about you, Commander?" Ashley asked. "You dig anything up?" Shepard nodded.

"Harkin told me about Garrus' investigation," Shepard said. "He was looking into a Doctor Michel." He laid out everything that Harkin had told him, minus the part about Anderson. He intended to confront the captain about that on his own time.

"Then we'd better find Michel's clinic," Ashley said once Shepard finished. "Public info terminal should show us where we need to go."

"Let's move," Shepard barked, and they stood.

They started to walk out of the club when a hulking shape walked into the door. He was distinctive, being huge, humpbacked, clad in crimson armor speckled with dark spots that looked like dried blood. A jagged canyon of scars rolled across his leathery features and dug into the blood-red bone crest over his reptilian face.

Shepard recognized the Urdnot Wrex from their last encounter, though the blood was new.

"Hm. I think I know you, human," the krogan said, his voice a deep rumble, but filled with weight and a hint of well-hidden intelligence, like a battle tank with a doctorate. Shepard nodded.

"I saw you in Chora's Den," he said. "Urdnot Wrex?"

"That's right," the krogan rumbled, head shifting to the left and right, the eyes on either side of his head alternately tracking the human. "Commander Shepard. I made some inquiries into a contact I have at C-Sec about turians who have a certain kind of marking on their faces. White teeth. Sound familiar?"

Shepard remembered the assassins he'd dispatched, and nodded.

"I find out that aside from myself, one other person had a run-in with armed turians with similar markings, backed by salarians. Such things aren't coincidences. A query to Barla Von showed me that you appear to have similar interests as me. Similar assassins trying to kill us. Similar enemies we're trying to bring down."

"That's right," Shepard said. "We're still trying to figure out who we're after, though."

"His name is Enrique Fist," Wrex explained, head cocking to the side. "Human. Runs Chora's Den. Worked for the Shadow Broker, though he decided to end the relationship. The Shadow Broker wants me to end _him_."

"We have the same enemy, then," Shepard said. "Partnership?"

"My people have a saying," Wrex said, and his hand extended toward Shepard. "Seek the enemy of your enemy, and you will find a friend."

"Good to have you on our side, Wrex," Shepard said, and took the krogan's hand. The immense hand's grip was strong, overpoweringly so, but Wrex didn't try to measure him by squeezing too hard. Maybe he didn't care, or maybe the krogan was too old and tough for those games.

"Do you know what information Fist was giving to Saren?" Shepard asked. Wrex's head twitched left and right. It might have been the krogan equivalent of a head shake.

"I didn't need to know that information," he said. "Might be a good idea to figure out what Fist was selling to Saren before we kill him."

"Then that means Garrus," Kaidan said.

"Who?" Wrex asked.

"C-Sec officer," Shepard explained. "Investigating the same leads we are. He was supposed to be at Doctor Michel's clinic, on this level of the Ward."

"Michel is right outside C-Sec headquarters," Wrex replied immediately. "Maybe a block away from here."

"Then that's where we're headed," Shepard said. "Wrex, since you know where it is, will you lead us there?"

The krogan nodded, the gesture a sharp and violent downward motion of the head, and turned the rumble out of the club, followed by the trio of Marines. The crowds parted around them like water.

* * *

They got within sight of Michel's clinic, which was located on the "outside" of the building the C-Sec academy was housed in. The "outside" in this case meant it opened out onto a deck of the building that looked out over the rest of the Ward arm and the nebula beyond. It was a huge and panoramic view that gave the humans a good look at the width and length of the Ward arm. Wrex didn't seem to be distracted by it, instead keeping to his purposeful, predatory stride.

The office itself was an unassuming suite with a simple holographic sign outside. A notice marked beneath the sign said it was closed.

"That's either a bad sign or a worse one," Ashley murmured.

"Shouldn't be closed," Wrex said. "I've gone here before. Michel doesn't close this early." His hand was tapping the shotgun mounted on his armor's lower back, below the point where his hump started. Shepard agreed, and stepped forward, taking the lead. He checked the lock, and grunted.

"Unlocked," the krogan whispered, sounding like a very, very low-key volcano.

"Bypassed," Kaidan whispered, looking at the lock with his omnitool. "Recently too."

Shepard nodded and drew his assault rifle. Wrex's shotgun appeared in his hands, and Ashley and Kaidan drew their weapons.

They opened the door in time to hear a woman shriek.

"I didn't tell them anything, I swear!" she yelled, her voice thick with a European accent Shepard didn't have time to place. The Commander slid into the waiting area, weapon ready, and saw a quartet of men behind the counter, in the low-priority treatment area. They had surrounded a woman in a doctor's coat, with a shock of disheveled red hair. They all wore light armor, some kind of low-profile holographic combat visors, and were carrying pistols or submachineguns.

"That's smart, Doctor," snarled the leader of the men, obviously mercenaries, and obviously oblivious to the intrusion. "Now if Garrus comes back around, you stay smart."

That was ironic. Crouching below the waiting counter, out of sight of the mercenaries, was Garrus Vakarian with a pistol in hand.

One of the mercs looked up at the sudden motion at the entrance, and the leader followed suit. As soon as he saw Shepard, trailed by Kaidan, Ashley, and Wrex, his weapon shot up toward them, and he grabbed Michel, holding her out in front of him.

"Who the hell are you?" the mercenary demanded as his men leveled their weapons.

Well, he tried to demand that. The last word was cut off as Garrus rolled around the counter, leveled his pistol at the mercenary's head, and put a round through his temple.

At that point, all hell broke loose.

The office became a torrent of raging gunfire as Shepard, Ashley, Wrex, and three shocked mercenaries opened up, filling the room with hypervelocity rounds. Michel dove to the floor, Garrus skittering forward to grab her and pull her behind cover. Dark energy coiled around Kaidan, and one of the clinic beds behind the mercenaries flipped up and smashed into a mercenary's back, hurling him onto his stomach. Shepard and Ashley dashed forward, ducking behind the counter, while Wrex went to the side, firing his shotgun to keep the rest of the mercenaries diving for cover.

The mercenaries scrambled and fell backwards deeper into the office, but Shepard and Ashley poured fire into them. One man fell, his barriers overwhelmed, while the other one was wrenched off his feet and slammed into the ceiling by Kaidan's biotics. As he fell, Shepard caught him in a violent shove that launched him across the office into the wall, where he impacted with a stomach-churning crunch.

The last mercenary was standing up, in time for Wrex to come around the counter. Most krogan in the heat of combat would have probably beaten the mercenary to death with their hands or feet; Wrex simply stomped up and calmly blasted him in the chest. The man's battered kinetic barriers weren't enough save him.

The whole fight had lasted maybe five seconds. Shepard and Ashley vaulted over the counter and swept the area beyond the minor treatment offices, and returned once it was clear. They found Kaidan checking over Doctor Michel, while Wrex calmly stood by the door, shotgun in hand and ready to ambush anyone who entered.

Garrus was standing beside Michel, who shook in a mixture of terror, relief, and adrenaline-fueled shock.

"No injuries," Kaidan said. He didn't bother checking the mercenaries.

"Thank you," Michel whispered. "I . . . I didn't expect Fist to . . . ."

"You're safe now, Doctor," Garrus said. "I'll call a team in to secure the area once we're gone. People I trust."

"Good shooting, Garrus," Shepard said as they approached him, and the turian nodded. "Got him clean."

"Sometimes, you get lucky," the turian replied with an air of satisfaction. "Didn't expect to see you again so soon, Commander."

"Been trying to contact you all day," he replied. "No way to get through."

"Had my comm offline," Garrus said, apology in his tone. "Was tracking down leads, didn't want to risk being tracked."

"Good idea," Wrex rumbled from across the room. "Wards are thick with Saren's assassins. Might have gone after you if they could."

"Did you find anything?" Shepard asked. "We know who we're after, but not what he's hiding."

"The quarian," Michel said suddenly. "That's it! That's who they were after!"

"What quarian?" Shepard asked. Michel looked away for a moment, and sat down. Shepard nodded to Kaidan, who went to get some water, while Ashley checked the downed mercenaries for any clues.

"She came in last night," Michel said, quietly. He heard guilt in her voice. "She'd been shot, and was scared. I helped treat her wounds. She said she had information, and needed a safe place, so I contacted Fist."

"And Fist decided to sell the information to Saren instead of the Shadow Broker," Wrex murmured. "Stupid."

"Fist betrayed the Shadow Broker?" Michel whispered, shocked. "That's insane, even for him!"

"What kind of information?" Garrus asked. "And why didn't she go to C-Sec with it?"

"She didn't say what she'd found," Michel replied. Kaidan returned, and she took the water with a nod of thanks. "And she said that the men who shot her were wearing C-Sec uniforms."

"Like the ones I killed," Wrex mused, as if he were asking for his favorite drink. "These assassins aren't terribly original."

"These bastards must have an inside source," Garrus hissed. "After we get done with Saren, I'll need to clean house."

"But first, we need to find that quarian," Shepard said. He looked back to Michel. "Does Fist have anywhere he could be hiding her?"

"The safest place is Chora's Den," she said. "He's got a small army protecting it."

"Then that's where we're headed," Shepard said. The others nodded.

"Commander," Garrus added. "If you don't mind, I want to be in on this one."

"A chance to take down Saren?" he asked, and Garrus nodded.

"I couldn't get enough evidence before, but I suspect that with your help, we can bring him down," Garrus said. "And Fist has had this coming for a long time, too."

"Agreed," Shepard said. "You don't mind following my orders?"

Garrus shook his head.

"Your show, Shepard," the turian said. "You have more experience than me. I'll be right behind you."

"Wrex," Shepard asked, turning to the krogan. "You're still with us?"

The battlemaster's head bobbed once, almost sedately.

"We still need to kill Fist," Wrex rumbled. "And I don't mind sharing."

"You'll follow orders, right?" Shepard added. The krogan wasn't under his direct command, not like Kaidan and Ashly were. As an independent element, he wasn't sure that Wrex would do as he commanded.

In response to the question, though, Wrex barked a laugh.

"I've been taking orders from others a hell of a lot younger than me for a long time," Wrex replied. "I've learned that someone needs to be in charge, or it all falls apart. I'll follow your lead, Shepard, for as long as we're killing Fist."

Good enough, Shepard decided. He looked to the collected team before him, and nodded inwardly.

Fist would never know what hit him.

* * *

-

* * *

_**Author's Notes:** _Once I got into the groove, and I started writing the characters, this chapter became a lot easier to write. Then again, I've always been better at plot progression over exposition. However, a big challenge I had here he was properly handling the progression of time between all these events happening at the same time.

By the way, writing Wrex is _too_ much fun.

Next chapter, we see the conclusion of this fun-filled romp through the Citadel!

Until next chapter . . . .


	8. Chapter VII: Takedown

_**Chapter Seven: Takedown**_

"You know," Ashley said as they approached Chora's Den. "I don't think C-Sec is going to appreciate us shooting this place up."

"We're just going in for a quiet drink," Garrus replied, his metallic voice tinged with amusement. "They opened fire on _us_, and we defended ourselves."

"We only shot back in self-defense," grunted Wrex. "All the way to Fist's office."

"Exactly," Garrus said.

It was about half an hour after they'd exited Doctor Michel's office. Shepard, Kaidan, and Ashley had affixed helmets once they'd gotten out of the transport car. One of the officers Garrus had called up to secure Michel's office had brought a long case that held two collapsed weapons: an assault rifle and a scoped carbine. Garrus had fixed them to his armor's hardpoints.

The rest of the team was also fully armed. Shepard and Ashley were carrying their assault rifles and sidearms, and Shepard had an extra shotgun on the hardpoint at his lower back. Kaidan only carried a heavy pistol, but with mass accelerator technology, the difference between pistols and longarms was not as great as it had been when chemical-propelled slugthrowers ruled the day. Wrex had an assault rifle, a shotgun, a _second_ shotgun, two heavy pistols, and a drum-fed weapon with a short, stubby barrel – what could only be a grenade launcher.

The walkways leading to Chora's Den were oddly quiet and empty. As they approached, Kaidan activated his omnitool, and grunted.

"Door's locked."

"Chora's Den _doesn't_ close," Garrus mused. "They know we're coming."

"Weapons ready, but check your fire," Shepard said. "Might be civilians in there. Don't shoot unless they're armed."

Wrex rumbled something unpleasant about that, but nodded. Weapons unfolded into waiting hands; Garrus, Ashley, and Shepard with assault rifles, Wrex with his shotgun, and Kaidan's heavy pistol. They moved up to the door, and Shepard debated whether to just blow it open or to pop the lock.

"Kaidan, do it quietly," Shepard said. "They know we're coming, but might not know we're out here."

Kaidan nodded and stepped toward the door. His omnitool lit up, and he went to work. It only took him a few seconds to bypass the firewalls and unlock the door. He took a step back, pistol at the ready.

"Stack up. Wrex, take the lead," Shepard said, and the krogan nodded. Aside from the fact that he wore the heaviest armor and was a biotic who could generate a defensive barrier like Kaidan, Wrex's krogan biology ensured he could withstand abuse that would pound any other sapient to jelly. He was the natural choice to take the lead.

They lined up outside the door, Wrex first, followed by Ashley, Shepard, and Garrus. Shepard drew and primed a flash grenade, and Kaidan, on the opposite side of the door, did the same with a tech mine designed to scramble targeting and heat sensors.

"Grenade in!" Shepard ordered. Kaidan opened the doors with a press of a holo-key, and both he and Shepard flung their grenades inside. There was a yell of surprise, followed by a detonation.

Wrex didn't wait for orders. He leapt forward into the room as soon as the grenades blew, and his shotgun roared immediately. Ashley was right behind him, and Shepard piled in after her.

Shepard saw blood flying from a collapsing corpse not two meters away, colored black in the dark red lighting. Shepard spotted multiple forms on either side of the bar, behind overturned tables or taking cover in alcoves. His helmet's HUD showed him a dozen small element zero masses, indicating kinetic barriers. Most of Fist's thugs were ducking for cover, shaking their heads from the disorienting effects of the flash grenade, or trying to get their weapons to function properly after Kaidan flooded the room with ECM. None of them were shooting.

Wrex was clearly experienced in breaching rooms, as he and Ashley had split the room in half and were advancing in opposite directions, firing their weapons as they cleared different halves of the bar. Shepard slid in behind Wrex, and Garrus behind Ashley. Assault weapons roared, and two more of Fist's stunned guards went down. Kaidan moved in behind Wrex and Shepard, readying another tech grenade.

By the time the entire squad piled into the bar, Fist's men were recovering from the shock and returned fire. Mass accelerator rounds shattered and flattened against barriers, sending gleaming blue flares in the air over Ashley and Wrex's armor. The krogan bouncer Wrex had threatened earlier emerged, blasting away with a heavy shotgun. The withering return fire forced Ashley and Garrus behind overturned tables on the left side of the Den, while Wrex strafed sideways into an alcove, shotgun roaring in the confined space. As soon as Wrex reached safety, he collapsed his shotgun and attached it to his armor, before reaching for the larger, heavier launcher on his back. Meanwhile, Kaidan crouched behind the bar and fired another grenade from his omnitool's launcher, flooding and overloading the kinetic barriers of two of Fist's guards.

Shepard vaulted over the central bar and crouched behind it. Rounds screamed and whipped past him overhead as he worked his way forward around the circular column. As he moved, he spotted a pair of weak element zero cores activating very close by – and directly overhead. If the HUD was right, they were on the dancer's platform overlooking the bar.

There hadn't been anyone up there before, but someone lying prone with their element zero cores turned off could hide pretty well from anyone entering through the front door, especially if they were distracted by a gunbattle. The tactic was pretty obvious; wait until the advancing assault team moved past the bar, and pour fire into their flanks. It would work pretty well against the usual criminal scum Fist would have expected to assault his business.

Shepard and his team were not the usual criminal scum. With a couple of quick taps on his omnitool, Shepard flashed the threat on everyone's HUD.

A heartbeat later, even as both the bodyguards rose to fire, gravity ceased to exist around them and they were lifted into the air. Kaidan then altered the mass effect field to fling the pair of bodyguards across the room into the far wall. As they hurtled across the Den, Ashley and Garrus advanced, one providing support fire for the other. The Turian Hierachy and Systems Alliance boot camps were developed by different species, but they both understood the concept of bounding cover. The two moved with the surety of soldiers who had been fighting side-by-side for years, instead of members of two different species who had met hours ago. Bodyguards fell as they methodically closed on the far side of the room.

The krogan bodyguard Shepard had seen hours ago emerged from behind an enormous overturned table, and his shotgun roared once, then twice. Garrus and Ashley ducked for cover under the barrage, and the krogan sprang out of cover with speed that belied his bulk. The bouncer's feet pumped, and he started to charge across the distance, intending to bring his bulk, muscle, and close combat skill against the pair.

A rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the krogan's shields and blew them apart. The bouncer recoiled in shock, and Garrus popped up from behind cover. His rifle barked once, then twice, two very quick individual shots, and the bouncer recoiled, howling and twitching. His weapon fired aimlessly until a second grenade hit him in the chest and shattered his armor, launching the savaged krogan's across the room. It took Shepard a moment to realize that Garrus had put a round into either of the krogan's eyes, bypassing the thick body plate of his skull to hit the brain directly. The humpbacked alien twitched and thrashed for several seconds, body still alive, until Garrus finished it with another burst.

Shepard glanced sideways, and saw Wrex firing his drum-fed grenade launcher again, blowing another bodyguard's cover to pieces and slamming the man against the wall, leaving him unconscious. He'd obviously kept he weapon in reserve, knowing that it wouldn't do to fire it in close combat until he knew what they were up against.

Shepard rose up enough to get a clear shot with his rifle and fired on the remaining pair of guards. Kaidan sent out another wave of altered gravity, ripping the bodyguards' cover away from them. One fell immediately to concentrated fire from Shepard and Ashley, while the other dropped bonelessly, two rounds punched through the middle of his nose, courtesy of Garrus.

The interior of Chora's Den went silent, save for the occasional moan from the few wounded-but-living guards.

"Fist will be in the back," Wrex said, collapsing his grenade launcher in favor of one of the shotguns. They moved around, policing weapons from the dead and wounded. None of the still-living bodyguards seemed to be in any mood to keep fighting, but they took no chances; most of the weapons were smashed under boots, the rest confiscated.

"He's probably calling in backup right now," Shepard said. "Garrus, Alenko, cover the entrance. Wrex, Williams, with me."

* * *

Enrique Fist was still hastily throwing his body armor on when he heard the doors to his private section of the club blow open. He cursed hard enough to peel paint, drawing his Rosenkov-manufactured heavy pistol and hitting the activation panel for his office's defense system.

Who the hell were these guys? On the cameras, he'd seen that damn C-Sec officer, Garrus, and he recognized Urdnot Wrex. The humans, though . . . they were new, and they didn't look like muscle Wrex or Garrus had hired. Shadow Broker agents?

Fist felt sweat pouring down his brow and the back of his neck.

"Dammit, Saren," Fist muttered. "Screw you for making me do this."

He just had to hold them back. He'd called for backup from Niles' group, and they were rushing back. They'd kill these bastards once they returned from dropping off the quarian.

That goddamn quarian. She was the one who got him into this shit. Saren wanted her and whatever info she had, and he'd paid damn well for it, but it hadn't been enough to buy off the Shadow Broker.

The inner door to his office blew open, and Fist saw figures beyond, swarming into the room.

The office's defenses sprang to life. On either side of Fist's desk, two innocuous gun turrets rose up, and swung toward the intruders. Fist started to raise his pistol.

The gun turret on the left simply exploded, a grenade lancing into it and detonating. The other turret tracked toward the intruders, only to be violently ripped out of its housing by a twisting wave of biotic force, and then hurled across the room. Bullets smashed into Fist's shields, and he dove behind his desk.

"Don't shoot!" he cried out, panic shooting through him. Those gun turrets were his ace in the hole. They'd killed more than one assassin who'd come after him, but these people had just smashed them like they were nothing. "Don't shoot, please!"

"Throw out your weapon!" a man barked, and Fist complied immediately, tossing his pistol aside. "Stand up! Hands in the air!"

Fist rose from behind the desk, and wished he hadn't. Three assault rifles were leveled at him, their wielders circling around the desk. There was a woman in heavy battle armor to his right, a man in lighter armor in the middle, and a hulking krogan to the left.

"Oh, God," Fist whispered as he saw the alien. "Wrex."

"Fist," the krogan replied, sounding bored. "You've been a very bad man."

"The quarian," said the man in the middle. "Where is she?"

"Quarian?" Fist said, blinking. "Uh. She's not here. She left a little while ago with my men."

"Oh, well, no use to you now," Wrex said to the human in the middle. "Let me kill him."

"No, wait!" Fist said quickly, holding up his hands. "I don't know where she is, but I know where you can find her!"

Fist realized how stupid that sounded right after he said it, but the people holding guns on him didn't seem inclined to point that out.

"Well?" the group's leader said, arching an eyebrow.

"She went to meet with the Shadow Borker," Fist said quickly. "I told her I'd set up a meeting for her. She had information for him."

"Impossible," Wrex snapped. "No one meets the Shadow Broker face to face. People always talk to him through agents. Even me."

"Yeah, but she didn't know that," Fist said. "When she gets there, Saren's men are going to be waiting for her."

The woman, who had been silent until now, stepped around the desk and grabbed Fist by the front of his armor. She slammed him facedown onto the desk with frightening strength, and stars flashed in Fist's vision.

"Where?" she snarled, shoving the rifle into his cheek.

"Alley three blocks away, outside the common markets, right next to Morlan's!" Fist squeaked. He felt his bowels loosen. "She just left a little while ago! If you hurry, you might be able to find her oh God pleasedon'tkillme!"

The woman instead hauled him up to his feet and pushed him backward. Fist stumbled back against the wall, and flushed with embarrassment. Thankfully, the armor hid the fact that he'd-

Wrex took a step to the side around the desk, shoved the shotgun in Fist's face, and there was an unholy amount of noise.

* * *

Ashley spun toward Wrex, leveling her weapon at him. It was more a reflex than anything else at the unexpected gunfire. Shepard jerked toward the krogan, who loomed beside him, eye flicking between the Chief's rifle and the beheaded corpse of Fist.

"I don't leave jobs unfinished," Wrex said, blunt and straightforward.

"Stand down, Chief," Shepard said after a moment. He hadn't given Wrex any orders to _not_ kill Fist, after all. Ashley lowered her weapon, scowling but silent.

"I know where the meeting is," Wrex added. "Been there before. Nice, quiet place for a gunfight."

"We don't have much time," Shepard said. "Let's go. Garrus, all clear?"

"Affirmative," the turian replied. "No hostiles at this time."

"Good. Let's move before Fist's backup gets here."

Fist's men had escorted her through the Wards until they reached the meeting place, a corridor bathed in blood-red light. The criminals were all wary but relaxed, and kept their hands on their weapons. In an alcove, a keeper fiddled with an out-of-the way terminal, oblivious to their presence.

Tali was waiting for no more than a few minutes, while her escort spread out, watching the entrances to the corridor. She kept her hand close to her pistol, and had an ECM mine ready to fire the moment she suspected trouble. She kept her head facing toward the direction their contact was supposed to approach from, but watched her escort through her helmet's HUD.

A couple minutes after they should have arrived, the door at the far end of the corridor opened, and she saw a turian flanked by a pair of salarians appear. They were all armored, and carrying light machine pistols.

The leader of the group, a heavyset man who seemed to prefer high-calorie food over exercise, paused suddenly and pressed a hand to his ear. He spoke quietly, and Tali activated her suit's audio amplifiers. Noise flooded into her helmet's speakers for a heartbeat before she narrowed the sensors' focus.

" . . . attack?" the human asked. "Who is . . . no, sir. Yes sir. They just . . . . Understood."

The human looked up, whistled, and the guards turned to face him.

"Something wrong?" asked the turian, whose face Tali noted was painted like the jaws of a predator. The salarians spread outward, covering opposite sides of the corridor.

"Trouble back at the club," the human said as the turian approached. "You can handle this?"

"Sure," replied the turian. The humans turned and started to move away, and Tali felt a spike of fear run through her.

"What's going on?" she asked, keeping her voice as controlled as she could, despite the fear bubbling up in her. She moved her right hand away from her weapon to put the mercenaries at ease, while prepping her ECM grenade launcher. Her HUD showed a half-dozen hidden weapons on the trio of mercenaries, and their kinetic barriers were active.

"Relax," the turian said, metallic voice calm, and she could hear something else in his voice. The alien's eyes flicked over her, and she fought to hide the shudder of revulsion running through her. Her environment suit was form-fitting, and quarian females' body structure resembled asari enough that anyone attracted to them would find a quarian woman just as pleasing.

"Where is the Shadow Broker?" she asked after a few moments as the two salarians finished their sweep, and stepped closer together to speak.

"He'll be here soon," the turian replied, mandibles parting a bit. He stepped closer. "Where is the data?"

"I'm only giving it to the Shadow Broker," she replied, tensing. "Don't waste my time."

"Don't worry, he's on his way," the turian said, and his arm rose toward her. He brushed the cloth draped over her helmet, and she smacked the arm away immediately, anger replacing her fear. If his fingers had brushed her suit, she would have felt the tactile sensation as if it had been against her exposed skin.

The turian leaned back, and his mandibles tightened against his jaw, making his face narrow – a sign of anger. She glared back at him, but knew the effect would be lessened by the opaque faceplate blocking her face from sight, but her next words sealed it.

"Deal's off," she hissed at the pervert. "I'm leaving."

Fist's men were gone, and had been singularly useless. She was on her own again, against three well-armed mercenaries in an open corridor with no cover. It reminded her of the first gunfight she'd been in on the Citadel. The turian took a long step backwards, reaching for the machine pistol at his side, while the salarians turned to face her, drawing their weapons.

There was a sudden explosion, but in the corridor behind her, and for a heartbeat everyone's attention was stolen. Tali seized the moment, and triggered the grenade launcher on her omnitool. The tiny ECM mine lanced out and detonated, sending waves of jamming over the salarians' helmet HUDs and throwing in a flash of light and sound for good measure. They reeled backward, while the turian snapped up his weapon and fired two long bursts into Tali at less then three meters away.

Tali's suit was quarian engineered, and quarians were widely considered the best technicians and engineers in the galaxy. It was nowhere as large, bulky, or spacious as a suit of heavy armor, but it was just as durable. More importantly, between both her peoples' technology and Tali's own tinkering, she'd been able to cram enough shielding into the suit to match a suit of heavy battle armor.

The turian's bursts slammed into her shields and deflected off, none of the rounds penetrating as she dove back, hunting for cover. There was a dumpster for one of the nearby shops a dozen meters away, and she dashed for it, drawing her pistol and firing as she ran.

The turian kept shooting, loosing burst after burst at Tali. Rounds shattered or bounced off her barriers, slamming into the wall and punching tiny holes. She had no illusions what those rounds would do to her body if they punched through her shields and suit.

She dove behind the dumpster as her displays wailed at her that the shields were about to fail. By then, the salarians had recovered and were firing at her, bullets rippling into the metal she crouched behind. They kept firing, a steady stream of rounds that kept her pinned in place, and Tali's mind whirled frantically as she tried to find a solution.

On her HUD, element zero cores appeared, only now they were behind her, and her heart leapt into her throat.

Fist's men were coming back. This was a trap.

The gunfire intensified, and Tali gripped her pistol tightly, loading another ECM grenade. If these bastards were going to kill her, she though, she'd do her parents proud and go down fighting. The door to the other end of the corridor opened, and she started to raise her weapon.

Something blue and blurry ripped past her, and she managed to realize it was a biotic attack right before the gunfire hammering her slackened immediately. She saw armored figures, humans, a turian, and a krogan, pouring through the doorway, assault rifles in hand, weapons blazing as they sent a torrent of fire down the corridor at the assassins. Beyond, she saw bodies – the corpses of Fist's men, laid out like felled wood.

The soldiers rushed past her, the thunder of their weapons loud and pounding in her hears even through her suit's filters. Tali stayed behind cover as bullets cut past overhead, the team of soldiers moving with coordinated, professional ease. One of them paused next to her, and she realized it was the human who had launched the initial biotic attack.

"Are you hurt?" a male's voice asked, urgent but concerned. The gunfire reached a crescendo as the rest of the human's team continued down the corridor, spraying death down the narrow passage.

"I'm not injured," Tali said, the terror giving way to relief and hope. A couple of seconds later, the gunfire cut off, and she heard a few shouts, calls of all clear, followed by more yells as the soldiers swept the alcoves for any survivors.

Tali stopped to breathe for a moment, the sudden turn leaving her off-balance. She'd spent the last days in quiet, worried terror, trying to navigate this strange place and keep herself alive. Treachery and lies had been a constant, and now she was . . .

Was she really safe?

"It's okay," the human said, standing, and he offered her his hand. She rose on her own, not taking it, and looked over the corridor. The three assassins were dead – quite thoroughly so, with more than one them in multiple pieces.

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice just a tiny bit shaky. "Not that I'm ungrateful, I mean, but . . . ."

"Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance military," the human said. "Are you Tali?" She nodded, and the human seemed to sag a tiny bit, as if in relief himself. "We need to get you someplace safe."

"Alliance embassy on the Presidium," said another human male, walking back toward them. "Between C-Sec and our own security, there shouldn't be anyplace more secure on the Citadel."

"Good idea, Alenko," Shepard said. "Let's move, before anyone comes looking for us."

The squad of soldiers and mercenaries formed up around Tali, and the feeling of relief was a palpable thing. Shepard stood beside her, and from the sound of his voice and the way he kept a protective eye over her, she knew she was safe.

That realization made her steps wobble a little bit.

* * *

The transition to the Presidium was a lot simpler and easier than what waited for them in the embassy offices. C-Sec was throwing a fit over the massacre at Chora's Den, but they didn't have any suspects as of yet. Someone had apparently wiped the security footage while killing Fist's personal army. At the same time, someone else had killed a dozen more of Fist's men in an alley, not fifty meters from another trio of murdered mercenaries who suspiciously matched several other mercenaries whose corpses had been found elsewhere in the Wards. Once again, C-Sec had no suspects.

That didn't mean that Ambassador Udina didn't know who was behind both rounds of violence.

"Udina's angry, Shepard," Anderson said, intercepting the group outside the embassy.

"Good," Shepard replied. "We've got what we needed."

"Hard evidence?" Anderson asked, and Shepard nodded. The Captain barely hid the smile on his face at that, and led the group into the office.

"You're not making my life easy, Shepard," Udina growled, facing away from the door while Shepard entered his office. He turned as he ranted. "Firefights in the Wards, an all-out assault on Chora's Den! Do you have any idea how hard I have to-"

His words swiftly cut off. After all, Udina had been expecting Shepard and Anderson, and maybe Kaidan and Ashley. He hadn't been expecting Shepard to enter with a quarian, a turian in C-Sec armor, and a krogan carrying his own weight in weaponry. Shepard himself wasn't sure why Wrex had followed him to the alley or come with him to the Ambassador's office; maybe he just liked the idea of tracking krogan footprints on the clean Presidium tiles.

"Shepard," Udina said, at a loss for words for a second. "What's going on here?"

"Making your day Ambassador," Shepard replied, unable to hide the satisfaction in his voice. "We've got proof Saren is a traitor."

"I . . .you do?" Udina asked, at a loss for words. Shepard nodded. "I see. Actionable evidence, I assume?"

"Correct," Shepard replied, and gestured to Tali. "The assassins we dealt with were agents of Saren, from what we gathered, and they were trying to kill Tali here because she had important evidence."

"I see," Udina said, nodding. "Maybe you should start at the beginning, Miss . . . ."

"Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya," the quarian offered.

"Please, sit down, Miss Rayya," Udina said, gesturing to his office. They followed him inside and sat down, save for Wrex, who leaned against a wall and watched with detached curiosity.

"Can you explain what all this was all about?" he asked. "Your actions in the Wards are causing some consernation among the authorities."

Shepard nodded, politely not commenting on Udina's skill at understatement, and gave him the short version of how they'd ended up waging a small urban war in the lower Wards. He started with the leads supplied by Barla Von and Harkin, the shoot-out at Doctor Michel's office, and the subsequent assault on Chora's Den.

"I see," Udina said, nodding. "I knew Fist had it coming. But what about this evidence you acquired?" He looked to Tali, who seemed as uncomfortable as a person encased in an environment suit could look without seeing her face.

"We don't see many quarians here on the Citadel," Udina said, and she nodded.

"I was on my Pilgrimage. Most quarians don't come out this far on the Pilgrimage. We're not . . ." she hesitated. "Welcome."

That was an understatement; quarians were renowned for their technical expertise, a survival trait that came from living entirely on the migrant Fleet. Quarian engineers and miners were in high demand on many worlds, and often took jobs that would have gone to less qualified natives otherwise. Quarians also had a tendency to strip worlds of necessary resources, something else that didn't engender them to being liked by other species. It resulted in an enormous amount of specism, even among the more tolerant species.

"Please, continue," Anderson said, and Tali nodded slowly.

"I was in an unclaimed system in the Traverse," she explained. "Surveying for resources, when I caught sight of a geth ship. I was curious. The geth don't leave the Veil, at least until recently. I tracked it to a nearby planet in the same system where the geth had established an outpost. I waited until one of the geth was isolated, and I disabled it and accessed its memory cores."

"How?" Kaidan asked. "I read the reports from Eden Prime. We couldn't salvage anything from the geth corpses. They burned their memory cores when disabled."

"Normally, yes," Tali replied. "But the quarians built the geth. No one understands their engineering like we do. I was able to disrupt the geth software long enough to shut off the platform's security systems and access its core, and I salvaged quite a bit of data."

"Anything useful?" Shepard asked, and she nodded again.

"The geth store large amounts of data on each platform. It is part of their software design," she explained. "They share information readily, and the geth's cache had audio files that were tagged as high priority." She lit up and fiddled with her omnitool for several seconds.

There was a faint squeal, and suddenly Saren's voice boomed into the office's confines.

_"Our assault on Eden Prime was a major victory," _the Spectre's voice, clear and unmistakable, said with complete satisfaction. _"We're one step closer to finding the Conduit."_

A heartbeat later, another voice, a smooth and cultured female tone, followed.

_"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers,"_ she said.

Dead silence followed that, and Shepard stared at Tali. That name was familiar. He'd heard it before, somewhere. Kaidan, Ashley, and Anderson seemed curious and confused, not understanding most of the statement, while Garrus' mask-like face was unreadable. Wrex didn't seem to particularly care either way.

In the subsequent silence, Tali spoke.

"After I acquired the data, I checked the extranet, and found out about Eden Prime," she explained. "I thought this information needed to reach the Council. I didn't recognize the voices, but I knew it was important, so I came here."

Anderson nodded in acknowledgement.

"That was a brave thing you did, Miss Rayya," he said, but she shook her head.

"The information needed to be heard," she said. "The Council, and everyone, needed to know."

Udina suddenly smiled.

"This is perfect," he said. "This is verifiable proof, at the very least of conspiracy. If we can get these audio files authenticated, this can be the evidence we need."

"What was that about Reapers?" Anderson asked, and Tali shrugged.

"There was a lot of data about that term," she said. "The geth apparently revere the Reapers as some kind of machine gods. They believe the Reapers were responsible for the galactic extinction fifty thousand years ago that destroyed the Protheans, and then vanished."

Shepard jerked as if slapped, and the vision suddenly reappeared in his thoughts. He remembered the dream he'd had, of soldiers and slavers being consumed and turned into husks, of the shadowy organic figures being destroyed and infected with machinery by implacable mechanical forces.

"The vision," he murmured, rubbing his temples. That headache was flaring back up, the same jackhammer migraine he'd felt before. "That was what I saw. I saw the Reapers wiping out the Protheans. That was the message in the beacon."

Udina frowned at him, expression skeptical.

"Sounds a little far-fetched, Commander," he said, shaking his head. "And what is this Conduit? A weapon of some kind?"

"According to the files, it had something to do with the Reapers," Tali explained. "It was why Saren attacked Eden Prime in the first place."

Udina shook his head again.

"The council is just going to love this," he muttered, words dripping with sarcasm and dismissal.

"Regardless of what else they might say," Anderson cut in, his voice becoming sharp and eager, "Those audio files prove Saren was behind Eden Prime."

"True," Udina said, standing. "We'll need to copy those files, Miss Rayya. Is that fine with you?"

"Certainly," she said. "I can help with the authentication process too. There are telltale markers of geth data networks. It'll help prove the information came from where I said it did."

"We'll need to get these files to the Council right away," Udina said.

Shepard nodded, rising and feeling a wave of angry satisfaction running through him as he did so. Saren wasn't going to get away – and Shepard was going to make certain of that, no matter what it took. He was going to bring that murdering turian bastard down.

There was going to be justice for Eden Prime, he promised himself, no matter what it took.

* * *

**_Author's Notes: _**Yes, Tali is one of my favorite characters, how can you tell? :p

This chapter was short, and took a while, but I tend to get distracted by shiny things easily, and I was in a slump. As so often happens, I wrot emost of this chapter, let it sit for a month until my inspirationc ame back, and finished the rest in a flurry of damaged keyboards.

Next chapter, we get to one of the best moments in the game, and maybe finally _off_ the Citadel and to the _good_ stuff.

Until next chapter . . . .


End file.
